Long Lost
by TheBlackAndRedSpirit
Summary: Lily Evans, the 'poor Mudblood' goes to Hogwarts, a school known for its elite and wealthy reputation, every day she's forced to listen to spoilt kids brag about their wealth, the Marauder's wealth and Petunia Eves, the 'queen bee's' wealth along with her all so very tragic family history concerning her long lost sister Lillian, blah, blah, blah.. It's all boring nonsense to Lily.
1. Chapter 1

Long Lost

**DISCLAIMER: I most unfortunately do not own Harry Potter, its plot or any of its character's. All belongs to the wonderful J K Rowlings!**

**Chapter 1**

Crack.

The tiny snap of a twig was heard as a young girl stood up in frustration. The wind tussled her red locks which she didn't bother to push back out of her face.

Kneeling down she picked up her book bag and made to leave. She took one final look at the scenery and smiled. The place wasn't grand, even for a nature strip; the grass was uneven and in need of a trim, the trees had broken branches hanging off them and leaves which were either dried out and brown, or half eaten by bugs.

But Lily Evans liked it; this place was the closest thing she had to home in this over the top, grand flashy school.

Lily felt a light water drop hit her face and looked up, the day had turned overcast. She began to raise her book bag to shield her from the rain, but then changed her mind. Shrugging, she slung her bag over her shoulder and made her way back to the castle at a slow content pace. As she neared Hogwarts she ignored the orderly flowers and perfectly trimmed grass that surrounded the school.

It was just _too_ perfect.

Everything about Hogwarts was; everything from the food, to the classes to the students. It was all perfect. Perfect, perfect, _perfect._

_How boring._ Lily thought disdainfully as she trampled by the gardens and trudged through the mud.

By the time she made it through one of the many entrances to Hogwarts she was entirely drenched through and consequently shivering. Naturally she was regretting her decision to walk(march) through the rain.

_Bloody flowers, just had to distract me long enough to get soaked._ Huffing in annoyance, Lily sped down a corridor and only stopped once she had reached the end, before turning to walk down the next, she looked back to admire the trail of mud she had left behind her. Nodding, satisfied, she plucked out her wand from the pocket of her robes and performed a quick drying charm over herself.

Lily grinned as she imagined what majority of her class mates reactions would be to seeing a bit of dirty water on the floor. _No worse than their usual reaction to me probably._

Suddenly realizing how much time she had wasted Lily began to run in the hopes of getting to her next class in time. Sprinting up two flights of stairs and skidding around a corner, she made it to the door of her transfiguration class within minutes.

One hand on the doorknob she paused and braced herself before turning it. Trying her best to be discreet Lily silently slipped into the class and closed the door with a click behind her. Looking around she was relieved to see, no one -none less professor McGonagoll- had noticed her.

Quiet as a mouse, she started to make her way over to where her best and only friend, Rebecca Brandee, sat.

With a startled squeak Lily found herself sprawled on the ground. Twisting around she found the corner of her cloak caught in the doorway.

Trying to reattain some dignity, Lily quickly jumped up and pulled her cloak out from the doorway.

_So much for being discreet._

Face burning with embarrassment, Lily turned around and met the beedy eyed glare of professor McGonagoll.

"Nothing, I repeat nothing gives a student the right to come late to my class. Ten points from Gryffindor and I'll be seeing you at 8 sharp for a detention. Are we clear?" she asked sharply.

"Yes professor" Lily muttered, not daring to argue.

Professor McGonagoll resumed her lecture, so Lily assumed it was safe to take a seat. Plopping down next to Rebecca, Lily tossed down her books and groaned; she didn't have the time for a detention, she needed to study for her charms test.

Rebecca caught her best friend's eye and 'absentmindedly' twirled a strand of hair on her finger. Catching the hint Lily mouthed back "that bad?" and only received a grin in answer. Lily casually took a hair tie from around her wrist and did up her messy red locks into a simple bun.

Rebecca watched on in amusement and disbelief at her friend's lack of need for a mirror and had to choke back a laugh as a leaf fell to the desk, while she tried to tie up the mess that she called hair.

The two friends listened to McGonagoll's lecture on the importance of NEWT's for a while longer before getting bored and resigning themselves for a game of tick-tack-toe (a muggle game Lily had taught Rebecca.)

Lily was about to win her fourth match in a row when the door suddenly slammed open and ricocheted back off the wall, revealing a bored looking Sirius Black.

Sirius casually walked into the classroom and sat at the back of the room with his friends as if nothing had happened.

Lily spun around and watched professor McGonagoll, she processed how the professor's lips thinned and how her eyes narrowed. But still, hardly surprisingly, aside from throwing Sirius a stern look the professor did and said nothing, and returned to her lecture.

Grounding her teeth Lily put her final cross in the centre of the page and muttered "I win."

Rebecca first stared at the page her friend had pierced her quill so deeply in that it tore and then cautiously moved her gaze up to the friend in question, she took in her ferocious expression and cringed. She didn't want Lily doing anything stupid.

"Lils?" she whispered.

"She said nothing!" Lily hissed under her breath.

"I know Lily, but it's not like we can do anything about it! And complaining does us no good." Rebecca swiftly looked around hoping no one was eavesdropping.

Lily muttered something unintelligible under her breath as her thoughts were a snide of insults and complaints. Hadn't McGonagoll just said that nothing gave the student the right to come late to her class? Lily let out a snort, obviously that rule didn't apply to the 'marauders.'

The marauder's consisted of four boys who so cockily believed they were better than everyone else just because their parents were rich.

So what? Everyone at Hogwart's was rich, aside from Lily that is. In fact the school was so determined to gain a reputation for being an all elite college, they didn't even offer scholarships!

Lily had only gotten in because her parents were so determined towards seeing their only child succeed that they payed practically every cent they made towards her school fees every year.

Unable to dissuade her parents about making her attend Hogwarts, Lily got a part-time weekend job at Hogsmead so her family's bills and rent could get paid somehow.

In the beginning Lily was worried about having no time to work, but then she remembered the marauder's had a great amount of influence over Hogwart's due to their parent's sponsorship of the school and they always insisted on Hogsmead trips.

_Obviously looking for an excuse to show off and spend more money in one trip then I would make in a year!_ Lily thought angrily, suppressing the urge to turn around and glare at the four ungrateful brats.

Lily felt someone kick her chair and turned around to meet Rebecca's nervous gaze. Lily realized that she had been glaring and quite openly so.

Looking around Lily desperately hoped no one had seen her obvious objection and disgust towards the marauder's, she didn't fancy becoming even more of a social outcast then she already was.

After a quick survey of the room she was relieved to see no one was looking her way. For the rest of the lesson Lily and Rebecca both remained silent, pretending to listen to McGonogall's lecture.

**################# &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&$$ **

James Potter yawned as he walked through the door to transfiguration with Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew on his heels; he briefly cast an uncaring eye around the class and noted by the lack of students that they were early.

An unusual occurrence. But this was transfiguration, the one subject James actually took some genuine interest in. He knew the professor would pass him in the subject, whether he deserved to pass or not, but still, he actually payed attention in transfiguration, so he felt he deserved those grades.

James, Peter and Remus took their usual seats at the back of the room and waited for the class to start. One by one students started filing in until eventually the class was almost entirely full.

"Good evening class" professor McGonogall said once everyone was seated.

"Today we will be beginning the theory of partial human transfiguration. You are now one week into your seventh year, if you think that we're going to be wasting time playing introductory games you are sadly mistaken. This year is your final year at the end of which you will be undertaking your NEWTs, nastily exhausting wizarding tests."

The entire class gave an internal grown as soon as the professor mentioned NEWTs. They had gotten the same repetitive lecture at least 20 times already. Each professor seemed to find the need to repeat the same boring NEWT lecture at least 5 times.

James zoned out of the next ten or so minutes of professor McGonogall's lecture. His eyes drifted around the room in boredom until finally resting on the door of the classroom where a figure caught his attention, she was a girl with jungle like red hair, a flushed face and dodo like wide eyes, who currently reminded James of a flamingo. He watched as the tackily dressed flamingo-girl, silently slipped into the classroom, casually closing the door on the hem of her cloak. The girl lifted her head and gave a quick scan of the room, apparently satisfied with her assessment she let out a muted sigh of relief.

James almost laughed knowing what was to come next and surely enough, a moment after the girl began to creep forward she let out a startled sound and fell flat on her face.

After that the girl had the audience of the entire class who were all laughing at her expense. Her beet red face really wasn't helping her much.

James almost laughed with them, but then held back, he wasn't raised to laugh with the crowd. So instead he settled for a disinterested frown and returned his attention to the front where professor McGonogall was angrily addressing the girl.

"Nothing, I repeat nothing gives a student the right to come late to my class. Ten points from Gryffindor and I'll be seeing you at 8 sharp for a detention. Are we clear?" she barked at the girl.

_Great, the flamingo is in my house and she's losing points_ James thought in irritation, pondering over McGonogall's harshness to the flamingo-girl. _It's not everyday teachers are too harsh on students from this school; they're too scared that they'll make influential enemies, or said enemies will find a way to get them sacked. Huh. So this girl mustn't be too wealthy then. _James thought unsurprised, throwing a disgusted look at her filthy attire.

It was also very unsurprising that James did not know who this girl was. After six years he still didn't know half the girls in his year. He hardly deigned to speak to most people; he generally found them repetitive and boring.

James yawned and refocused his attention to the front of the class, wondering when his best mate, Sirius would show up, that's _if _he decided to show up.

** ##################%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% **

"Are you finished with your dinner yet Lils?"

"Almost" Lily replied distractedly.

"Lily, you said the same thing 15 minutes ago! And you know I need to go to the library and study for that blasted DADA test!" Rebecca snapped.

"Did you just say DADA? Is it really that hard to say defence against the dark arts!?" Lily asked, smirking.

"Don't change the subject Lily, just hurry up and eat." Rebecca snapped back, glaring.

"Alright, alright but treacle tart is not something that should be rushed! The elves haven't served this dish of delectable goodness in ages!" Lily whined.

"3 days" Rebecca interjected. Lily didn't appear to hear her as she helped herself to a third serving of treacle tart.

"And besides," Rebecca continued, "I thought you were all about hunger strikes and whatnot on behalf of house elf rights."

"Who's changing the subject now?" Lily grumbled through a mouthful of tart.

"I'm just saying… I mean you do realize that slave labour went into that tart don't you?" Rebecca said, pressing the point. She was enjoying the opportunity to use Lily's words against her.

"Treacle tarts are NOT made through slave labour! They're made with love and affection. And I'm finished!" Lily declared springing up.

"Finally" Rebecca muttered.

"You know Bec, for a girl who claims to hate studying so much; you sure don't waste too much time procrastinating." Lily observed.

"Lily." Rebecca sighed, uncharacteristically serious, "This year isn't like last year, or the year before. It's time I got serious about my grades; the marks I get now will be what determine my future."

"Your future?" Lily echoed back in shock, this wasn't your typical Rebecca Brandee speech.

"Yes Lils, school is only one small step of the life long journey." She informed her philosophically.

"well yeah, but wasn't it you who always said that school didn't matter? Not for the rich anyway, that it was a mere part of the rich people cycle, an opportunity to play the field. And after that you just marry the person your parents deem suitable(wealthy) enough, so that you can both live happily ever after off your family fortune." Lily reminded her, shrugging.

"You forgot the part about maintaining the family fortune, but yes that is the general idea." Rebecca said rolling her eyes, aware that Lily loved any opportunity to imply that rich people were lazy mules that did nothing.

"Which brings me back to what I was getting at, I don't want to be a part of some endless cycle; I want to really be someone, my own person. I mean I know that last year, I was always saying that I wanted nothing more than fun out of life. But realistically, it's time to grow up. There's a war coming, I can feel it and I know you can too. How long do you think the wealthy will remain up top for? We're the ones 'you know who' is currently targeting, as we can provide him with more power and influence. Some of us will join him, others won't. And for those of us that won't join him, what do you think will happen to our power and influence? It all depends on how strong he is. And I will never join him and his medi-evil cult, so I'm bracing myself for a fall. But if I fall, I plan to leave my imprint on as many people as I can." Rebecca rushed this little speech all out in one breath; she appeared to have been holding these thoughts in for quite some time.

Lily stared at her best friend, amazed. It's not that she didn't agree with her, she just didn't expect Rebecca to have come to such a mature decisive decision like that so suddenly.

Feeling it was her duty as a best friend to lighten the mood, Lily suddenly grinned and raised her eye brows eagerly, "Well, you said you wanted to be someone… who'd you have in mind?" she asked with an evil grin.

"No way! We DO NOT have time for polyjuice potion! Not today anyway.." Rebecca said amused, before returning to her serious mood. "But to answer your question honestly, I want to be the minister, the minister for magic." Rebecca said the last sentence in a tone which might have uncharacteristically past as nervous. Which was really saying something, as Rebecca almost never got nervous.

Lily opened her mouth to begin her polyjuice potion argument, only to snap it shut a moment later when what her best friend had said finally registered.

"Are you serious? The minister for magic!?" Lily cried out.

"Yes." Rebecca replied, irritated at her friend's lack of support.

"Wow" breathed Lily "you sure are ambitious." She said studying her friend closely; she knew that Rebecca would fight for whatever she wanted once she was certain of what she wanted. Lily just wasn't sure if Rebecca _was_ certain of what she wanted, she was young and newly learning of the wrongs of the world, and due to the violence surrounding her was driven with the desire to do something, just like the rest of the youth. Until the youth ages and with them their passion dies down and they realize just how tiring fighting can be, they lose their passion and sit back and wait for the world to change, rather than fight to change it themselves. Lily hoped Rebecca wouldn't be one of these people. And would stick firmly to what she knew was right and would continue to do everything in her power to put that knowledge into action.

"I guess only time can tell," She said quietly, before brightening up and continuing in a cheery tone, "Well we know one thing for sure, you and I won't be getting too far in politics if we don't get straight O's. So I suggest we get down to the library right this instant, the way I hear it, DADA essays don't write themselves."

"_You_ and I won't get far in politics? And did you just say DADA, little miss queen of hypocrisy?" Rebecca inquired, as the two walked down a staircase.

Lily chose to ignore the second question and instead addressed the first. "Well I've given it a second of thought and have decided that politics can be a great way to get my views heard. Did you know that minster's hardly ever come up with their own ideas, in fact they have advisers and parties who come up with things for them and people who even right their speeches! So I've decided to become your future secretary, adviser and speech writer." Lily informed Rebecca with sudden humour. "You can be the face of my brilliant ideas, I don't mind, really; your face has always been more attractive than mine."

"Tell me something I don't already know. But all humour aside, are you serious about writing my speeches Lils? Coz I could do with an editor, editing MY ideas."

"Well duh, how else am I going to find the time to hang out with the all busy-and-important minister for magic? Besides I genuinely believe that MY ideas and ideals could do the magic world a lot of good." Lily replied as she and Rebecca turned down the corridor that led to the library.

"Oh I finally see where you're going with this Lils! You're going to get me to announce that all wizards are to sack their house elves aren't you?" Lily's sheepish expression was answer enough.

"Jeez Lils," Rebecca said rolling her eyes, "You know I want to be one of those ministers people actually like and respect, like crouch. I mean wizards AND house-elves' will hate me for a law like that."

Rebecca laughed at Lily's crestfallen expression, but then in an attempt to lift her spirits reminded her that things can always change in the future. "You never know what tomorrow holds."

"But for now, the only advice you will be giving is whether I should wear a blue, purple, green or black dress to the Halloween ball."

"The Halloween ball? But that's ages away! I mean the school year only started a week ago!" Lily exclaimed.

"Lily Halloween Is next month!" Rebecca said in shock.

"On the last day of the month, so it's practically two months away." Lily said unconcerned.

Rebecca merely rolled her eyes, "Still I can't decide whether I'm going to wear blue, purp-"

Rebecca was cut off by a snide, nasty laugh, just as she opened the door to the library.

A group of girls had chosen the same moment to prance out and push past Lily and Rebecca.

They spun around to see that the group had been none other than Betty Jeacle and Petunia Eves, followed by their horde of brainless minions.

Petunia seemed to be in the midst of retelling some 'hilarious' story.

It was so funny that she was the first person to laugh and it took a few seconds for her minions to join in, once it had occurred to them that they were supposed to be laughing.

Lily and Rebecca waited until the last of the group had rounded the corner, before exchanging equally disgusted looks. They then silently entered the library and made their way towards the back where they plunked themselves down between two quiet abandoned bookcases.

"I wonder what was soooo funny." Rebecca snorted under her breath, "I mean really, the herd of sheep sure seemed hysterical."

Lily laughed aloud at this, before remembering she was supposed to be quiet in the library.

"I will seriously never understand peoples obsession with Petunia, it's only because her parents own a fortune, because there is NO way anyone would be drawn to her personality." Lily said quietly, grimacing at the possibility of that.

"You said it sister," Rebecca said, nodding her head in agreement. "Let's not forget though, people are also very fascinated with her all-so-tragic family history, she really loves to lay that story on thick doesn't she?"

Lily and Rebecca had both heard Petunia's story more times than either of them cared to hear it.

"Oh that's right, Petunia and her long lost twin sister Lillian," Lily said in a sarcastically tragic voice.

Admittedly, the first time Lily had heard the story, she did think it was a tragedy. However, after spending six years, six long years, with Petunia Eves, Lily felt almost no guilt whatsoever in admitting she was slightly glad that Petunia's twin was missing. _I mean really _Lily thought _one Eves is bad enough._

Lily and Rebecca both took out their text books and quills.

"That's one damn lucky girl though," Rebecca said, "escaping a sister like that."

"Lucky people aren't related to hags Bec," Lily reminded her grinning.

"Oh yeah, good point. I wonder if she's also a hag," Rebecca mused.

"I guess we'll never know, it's odd though, that her family are still frantically searching the world for her. I heard that they recently brought in a girl from France who had a birthmark similar to hers, only to find out she was a fraud." Lily informed Rebecca.

"Another one then? That brings the fraud telly to 27 now." Rebecca said highly amused.

"Why would anyone bother to fake being Lillian Eves?" Lily asked baffled.

Rebecca rolled her eyes, "Oh I don't know, I mean I don't think it's because her family owns a fortune and Lillian was supposed to inherit half of that fortune. Nope I think it must be because they want Petunia for a sister, yep that's definitely the reason." Rebecca said, sarcasm heavily lacing her tone.

"Sarcasm is the lowest form of wits Beccy." Lily said glowering.

"After your last comment I seriously doubt your knowledge on wits," Rebecca retorted, laughing.

"But still," Lily said, deciding to ignore the jibe, "I know that Lillian is their daughter, but isn't 15 years a bit of a long time to search for a girl you hardly knew? Especially since- and I don't mean to be harsh by this- the girl's probably dead. A kidnapped kid hardly ever goes to a loving home; I mean what loving family would kidnap a kid!? And we know she wasn't a run away, she was hardly old enough to walk, let alone take off her seat belt. Which also raises the question, why was she in a car- a _muggle _contraption- in the first place?" The more Lily thought about it the more the Eve's history didn't make sense.

Rebecca snorted and rolled her eyes for what seemed like the gazillionth time that day.

"Well I understand your questioning on the car, apparently Mrs Eves has a brother who's a squib and married to a muggle, who is clueless about magic, or something along those lines and they were visiting, and getting there by car, so as not to petrify the muggle."

"And what about why they won't let Lillian go, or even hold a funeral for her, for that matter?" Lily cut in.

"I was getting there, Lily have you ever heard of a family clock?"

Lily frowned and shook her head.

"It's something that most wizarding families like to have; rather then numbers the clock has a number of options ranging from safe, to home, to school, to work, to travelling, to mortal peril. And the hands of the clock- and there's usually more than two- each have the faces of a family member. The hand which is Lillian's has apparently been constantly moving over the years, it gone from school, to travelling to work! But according to the Eves her hand has never once pointed at the home option, not once, since the night she disappeared. That's how they caught their trickiest fraud- I think it was fraud number 11- it was all over the prophet at the time. You wouldn't have seen it; it was a couple of years before you knew you were a witch Lily." Rebecca said, submerged in memories.

"What happened?" Lily asked, irritated that she was curious about the family of the girl she despised.

"the fraud's parents were obviously after the wealth and status of the Eves, so they brought in their nine year old daughter and claimed her to be Lillian. They said that after the car crash everything was beserk, the streets were filled with crowds, and right around the corner of the crash, where there is conveniently enough, an orphanage, they found a baby girl sitting on the doorstep, whom they supposedly fell in love with at once. They brought her inside the adoption centre and legally adopted her. Then years later they heard about the girl who went missing after the car crash and realized that their daughter 'Jenny' who matched the physical description, could be the Eves 'Lillian.' And then-"

"Wait, there's a floor in that story," Lily interrupted, "how could they just adopt the baby like that? If the baby had apparently just been left there?"

"Because Lily, people leave babies on the doorsteps of orphanages all the time. This was the fraud's story: when they came in, the people working there weren't familiar with the baby and automatically assumed they were giving it up. But when the couple told them that the baby was left on the doorstep, they were pretty much given the girl without much paper work involved at all, I mean really, how much paper work could there be on a child no one knows anything about?" Rebecca asked rhetorically.

"So how did they almost fool the Eves?" Lily asked, entirely consumed in the story.

"They hired private investigators; you know how the Eves' always say they have a few ways to tell the real Lillian from a fraud?"

Lily simply nodded.

"You've heard about her supposedly unique birthmark right? Only they never told anyone where it was or what it looked like."

Another nod.

"Well the little fraud Jenny shows up claiming to be Lillian and the first thing they ask is if she has any birthmarks and of course she says yes. So the Eves' check where the birthmark is supposed to be and guess what? The girl has the mark!" Rebecca exclaimed.

"How?" Lily asked shocked, "How did Jenny get the birthmark? And how did her parents even know what it looked li-" Oh Lily's eyes suddenly widened in understanding.

"Of course! The private investigators." She said answering her own question.

"But that still doesn't explain how Jenny got an exact replica of the birthmark."

"I'd roll my eyes Lils, if I weren't worried about them falling out from excessive use." Rebecca grumbled.

"Magic Lily! How hard is it to make a convincing tattoo!? Especially with the aid of magic?"

"What about blood tests though? Not even magic can fake those!" Lily exclaimed triumphantly, earning a glare from Madam Pince. "You would think that's the first thing they would do; run a blood test."

"Oh they did," Rebecca replied. "The frauds' bribed the healer in charge of the results," she said grimly.

"Huh. Not bad. So you said that they found out jenny was a fraud because of the clock…" Lily prompted Rebecca to finish the story.

"That's right, all those years Lillian's hand moved to almost every option, except home. And everyone has a home, whether it's a house, a mansion, a hut, a kennel or even the streets. So the Eves assumed that the reason why Lillian's hand was never home was because she was never truly home, with them, her family, her real home." Rebecca gushed.

"It's kind of sweet actually, so you can imagine after all the evidence they were given that their daughter was finally home, the Eves confusion when the clocks hand was pointing to travelling." Rebecca said, causing Lily to laugh.

"Guess the frauds' didn't think of everything then, few frauds ever do." Lily stated in amusement.

Rebecca twirled a quill in her hand and concluded the story.

"So then they made little Jenny do another blood test, but got a trusted friend of the family to do it, in the end they were only half surprized when the test proclaimed the girl to be Jenny Hastings and not Lillian Eves."

Lily sighed, she felt sorry for the little girl, Jenny. Between her and her parents she was the fraud most known the one known by name and she probably suffered a lot of criticism because of what her parents had done. And really she was just an innocent little girl who was doing as her parents told her too, parents who claimed not to be her parents… poor girl.

Lily suddenly caught a glimpse of the clock hanging over Madame Pince's oversized desk and jumped up cursing aloud.

"What!?" Rebecca cried, irritated over her newly spilt ink.

"The time!" Lily groaned, "I was meant to meet professor McGonangoll for my detention 45 minutes ago!" Lily wailed out horrified.

Rebecca grimaced in sympathy for her best friend.

"Not off to a good start this year, are you Lils?" Rebecca asked stifling a laugh.

Lily didn't bother to answer as she scooped up her unopened Defence Against The Dark Arts text book into her bag, slung it over her shoulder and bolted for the door, ignoring Madame Pince's shouts of indignation over her running in a library, which followed her as she flew out the door and down the hall.

**AN:**

**YAY! I finished my first chapter! If you're reading this and interested in continuing to read my story, then please! I need some input! In case you haven't realized there wasn't much marauder action in this chapter and that's because I have no idea how I want to write James, I just can't decide on his personality! So some advice would be much appreciated:) Also, chapter length? I was thinking about keeping my chapters about this length or a bit longer, but if readers would prefer longer or shorter chapters, now's the time to say something! And of course, shorter chaps mean sooner updates, longer means later… Anyway! I've already started chapter two! And have a lot of ideas for this story! If you have any don't feel shy to share!:) **


	2. Chapter 2

**Long Lost**

**DISCLAIMER: I most unfortunately do not own Harry Potter, its plot or any of its character's. All belongs to the wonderful J.K Rowlings!**

**Chapter 2**

"Padfoot duck!" James Potter called out as he chucked a quaffle at his best mate, Sirius Black's, head.

Rather than ducking Sirius speedily spun around and caught the quaffle in his outstretched hand.

"Nice catch." James appraised, kicking off his shoes and collapsing onto his bed.

"What was that for!?" Sirius asked indignantly.

"Just checking." James shrugged, pulling out a piece of parchment from his pocket.

"Checking what?" Sirius snorted, "The quickest way to crack open my skull!?"

"Not quite, just wanted to make sure the holidays haven't put you out of shape." James replied in a bored tone. "I'm holding quidditch tryouts this Tuesday," he informed Sirius.

"What and you think there's a chance that I won't make the team" Sirius asked disbelievingly.

"Nah, I just wanted to throw a quaffle at your head." James answered honestly, unfazed by his friend's glare.

A sudden laugh cut off whatever Sirius had opened his mouth to say.

"Who's throwing quaffles at whose head?" Remus Lupin asked walking in with Peter Pettigrew.

"No one," James responded, jumping up and tossing the parchment he had been holding into Remus's surprised hands.

"What's that?" Peter asked curiously, peering over Remus's shoulder at the complex design.

"Outline of Hogsmead," James answered grinning. The Marauder's had created what they called the _Marauder's map _2 years ago; it was a map of Hogwarts, a map that showed everyone, whoever they were and wherever they were. No one could fool the map. Recently the Marauder's had decided they would try to widen their horizons and make a map of Hogsmeade.

"Brilliant, how'd you get the outline of the place? There are even some trap doors that we didn't know about on this!" Remus eagerly said, his eyes scanning over every inch of the parchment. He then took a seat beside James, the other two Marauders followed suit.

James merely shrugged, "Oh you know, I just hired some people."

"Why didn't I think of that?" Sirius laughed, the rich life was just too simple; it almost sucked the adventure out of things.

"So, we all set then, to start making the new map?" Remus questioned eagerly.

"Later tonight," James said. "I want to check out some of the hidden paths in Hogsmeade first, see if they're usable."

"Cool then, should we tell the teacher's to cancel classes and organize a Hogsmeade trip?" Peter asked, getting up and throwing on a jacket.

James also stood up, putting on his shoes. "Don't worry about the rest of the school." He said walking out of the seventh year boys dormitory. "They'll only get in our way."

"He has a point," Sirius said, ducking out of the door after James, with Remus and Peter following close behind. The Marauders' could never go anywhere without gaining a horde of attention from a horde of hopeful suckups; all after the same thing, the Marauders' wealth and reputation.

The four strode purposefully through the common room towards the door, when they suddenly stopped; surprized. Two girls had roughly shoved past them and were now heading straight for the door, without even pausing to apologize.

The Marauders' stared after them; amazed. No one ever touched the Marauders, EVER; no one dared. Of course sometimes small forgivable accidents happened, however deliberately shoving the Marauders was like social suicide. It wasn't so much that the Marauders' cared if someone unintentionally harmed their reputation, but the rest of the school did, they loved things in perfect order, they loved a hierarchy and they loved to stomp on anyone who threatened it. And the Marauders just didn't care enough to stop them, the teachers tried, but really, in a battle that used wealth instead of wands, how much could the teachers do, without harming their own reputations?

So it was with this in mind, that the Marauder's stood, momentarily astonished, until one of them, James, snapped out of it.

"Who were they?" he demanded indignantly, turning to Sirius. Of the four boys, only James and Peter really cared about their image, although they cared in different ways; Peter cared about his reputation, while James cared about his pride, his pride which had supposedly been wounded by not one, but two girls barging rather than 'accidently bumping' into him and ignoring him rather than flirting with him.

It was an odd experience.

"How should I know?" Sirius responded to James's question, with a careless shrug.

"They were girls." James stated the obvious. "You're a player; don't you know every girl in the school?"

"Not the first and second years and only half the third." Sirius replied grinning.

"They didn't look like kids," James grumbled.

Sirius rolled his eyes. "Does it matter? Why do you care so much anyway? I thought you were in a war with the other gender," he reminded him, playfully knocking his shoulder. Remus and Peter started laughing at Sirius's joke.

"I'm not in a war with anyone." James said glowering, his ears slightly reddening, "Just because I haven't found anyone worth liking."

The boys continued to laugh at their friend's expense.

"Well Prongsy boy, did you happen to see any worth in the girls whom you can't seem to take your mind off? I hope not, I can't promise you I'll be able to set you up with them, as by judging from what I could see of their behinds, we've never met."

Remus rolled his eyes at his friend's perverted comment and Peter laughed.

"So what do you reckon?" Sirius continued laughter present in his voice. "See anything with 'worth'?"

"Judging by what I could see of their behinds; no worth," James grinned in answer, choosing to join the joke rather than be on its receiving end.

Remus groaned and Peter just laughed.

**################# $$$$$$$$$$%%%%%%%%%%%%^ && **

Meanwhile.

"Lily! WAKE UP!"

The red head in question grumbled something incomprehensible into her pillow, as her best friend pelted pillows into her face.

"I'm awake," Lily mumbled.

Rebecca Brandee momentarily paused in her persistent attack to give her friend the chance to get out of bed.

Lily raised her head off her pillow and looked up at Rebecca; she gave one bleary blink before dropping her head back down.

"Lily!" Rebecca cried, tearing the blankets off her bed.

"Lily, we have defence against the dark arts first thing! Remember!? LILY WE HAVE A DEFENCE AGAINST THE DARK ARTS TEST!" Rebecca shouted at the sleepy girl.

Lily looked back up at Rebecca and grinned, "You said Defence Against The Dark Arts."

And then the truth about what Rebecca had said dawned on Lily and in half a heartbeat she was out of bed.

"Merlin's beard! Oh no! Oh no! Oh no! I didn't study! I forgot! McGonagall that old-! Oh no! Oh no! Oh no!" Lily ranted as she ran around the room, searching madly for a towel.

"Lily, why do you have a towel? Have you looked at the time? _There is no time! _Class starts in 2 minutes, we've already missed breakfast!"

"But breakfast is the most important meal of the day!" Lily complained, she was always grouchy on an empty stomach.

"Well maybe if you had gotten up when I first woke you, which was half an hour ago, we wouldn't be having this problem." Rebecca snapped.

Rebecca picked up a pair of Lily's school robes and tossed them to her.

"If you don't have those on in 30 seconds, you're going to class in you pj's." She informed her with a very serious glare on her face.

20 seconds later Rebecca sprinted out of the common room, towing Lily along, who was desperately trying not to trip over her untied shoelaces.

The two girls sped down the hall and took a sharp turn around a corner, they flew up a flight of stairs and were forced to pause as the staircase started to move.

"Not now!" Lily groaned, regaining her breath.

"Why," Rebecca demanded, "did you sleep in till so late in the first place?"

"Professor McGonagall" Lily replied pulling a face, "wasn't too happy when I showed up at the end of my detention last night. So she sent me to have my detention with Filch and he made me scrub leech tanks for 5 hours!"

"5? That's really harsh, your muscles must be aching all over." Rebecca said sympathetically. "At least it's over now," she added brightly.

"Over? That easily! When has McGonagall ever been easy on me?" Lily asked astonished. "She gave me a week of detention, all with Filch!"

"Ouch. That's strict, even for her. You really should try to get into her good books Lils."

"How? I'm a disaster at transfiguration, the only reason I'm taking that awful-flea-bitten-class is because it's a pre-requisite for most jobs." Lily grumbled.

"Lilyyyy, we're supposed to be acing school remember? 'I'm a disaster at transfiguration,' what kind of an attitude is this? You want my advice, you're just going to have to work a hell lot harder, unless you _want_ to be stuck with the people hater every second night." Rebecca said reasonably.

"The people hater? How fitting. I don't think I've ever met a person with more of an aversion to people than Filch."

Laughing, Rebecca asked "Aren't you forgetting someone? Mr. I'm so high and mighty and I hate everyone because they're not as high and mighty as me."

Lily snorted, "Potter, Of course. Why didn't I think of that? The next Argus Filch I think, can you imagine him lurking about in rags, shouting orders at everyone only to have no one listen?"

"That is exactly where he'll end up when karma kicks him in the ass and he loses all his money"

The best friends burst out laughing as they pictured the beautiful future they had described. They only sobered up when they felt the floor under their feet shift and realized that the staircase was moving again.

"Oh man! We've been talking for ten minutes! And we didn't even get off the goddamn staircase!" Rebecca exclaimed, looking close to tears.

After the staircase swung to the right and moved up two floors it finally stopped. Lily and Rebecca didn't hesitate before running off the stairs.

"Now what?" Rebecca asked, "In seventh year they don't let people walk in late to tests and no one gets to redo them without a valid excuse."

Lily stared mutely at Rebecca, her aghast expression frozen in place.

"But Rebecca… These test results will be on our final report. They effect are final grade! How bad is a big fat zero going to look!?" Lily demanded in a quiet voice.

"We need to do something," Rebecca decided.

"Obviously what we need is a plan," Lily corrected.

"We can't go to class."

"A valid excuse…?"

"You broke your neck."

"What!?"

"The excuse is pretty valid Lils."

"Professor Mocha won't be fooled, she'll ask Madame Pomfrey."

"You're right. Looks like we're really going to have to break your neck, I'll even break my leg for good measure." Rebecca said enthusiastically.

Lily stared at Rebecca, not quite sure if her friend was serious or not. Rebecca saw the doubt on Lily's face, "Oh come on Lils, this might actually work!"

"A terrible accident," Lily said catching Rebecca's contagious enthusiasm.

"Tripped on Misses Norris."

"Fell down the staircase."

"Limped our way to Madame Pomfrey!"

"I'm not going to break my neck," Lily said suddenly and decisively. "_You _break your neck."

Rebecca frowned, "fine, it'll be the luck of the draw, we both jump down the staircase closest to the hospital wing and we'll hope to break are legs and arms rather than our necks."

"We're actually going to jump!?" Lily asked shocked. "I thought we were just going to use bone breaking hexes on each other."

"Nope, we need more than broken bones to make this convincing, we'll need bruises and scratches as well. And after all that work, I think it'd be way easier and quicker to just jump off the staircase."

"Like two suicidal lunatics," Lily commented dryly.

"Exactly like that, now come on! If we don't do this before period 2 we'll be questioned about where we were during first hour." Rebecca said as she started down the empty halls.

"Fine," Lily huffed as she quickly caught up to her.

As the two girls made their way down the corridor to where they knew the staircase that led to the hospital wing was, they continuously glanced around themselves making sure there were no witnesses.

They finally reached their destination and stopped there, there was a heavy silence as the girls analysed the steep, stone staircase.

Lily swallowed nervously. "That stone sure looks hard, it's not even smooth, it's all jaggered looking!" She was quickly working her way into hysteria.

"We'll only be on that stone for a short while." Rebecca said, trying to reassure them both.

"A short while!? Look how steep those stairs are!" Lily said horrified.

"Lily relax, it can't be any worse than that time in first year when you fell off your broom. The fall was heaps further than this one will be and you're bigger and stronger now," Rebecca said confidently.

Lily frowned, hardly reassured. Her accident in first year had hurt like hell, the fact that Rebecca was comparing that incident to this one terrified her.

'Alright," Rebecca said taking a deep breath, "one."

"Two," Lily continued.

"Thr-"

"Wait!" Lily cut Rebecca off.

"What?" Rebecca asked impatiently.

"We can't just jump and expect to fall; I tried it once in drama class, at my muggle school, for an act. It's a lot hared then it looks, but if we join hands it'll be harder to keep balance when we land." Lily told her, holding her hand out expectantly.

"Good thinking," Rebecca said taking Lily's hand and bracing herself.

"And while we're at it," Lily said, pulling out her wand and swirling in a circle over the girls heads.

"What did you do?" Rebecca asked curiously.

"Pain reduction charm," Lily said proudly.

"Wow, that's pretty advanced stuff Lils," Rebecca said, impressed.

"Alright now we've wasted enough time so we'd better get on with this," Lily said impatiently.

"Three," Rebecca started.

"Two," Lily continued, anticipation curling her stomach.

"One!" They shouted together, jumping. Rebecca landed on a step a fraction of a second before Lily did, causing Lily to slam into Rebecca who in turn stumbled down the stairs, pulling Lily with her. The two girls went flying down the stairs, tumbling again and again before landing in a heap on the cold stone floor, with a resounding crunch.

"That was an interesting experience. The lack of pain almost made it feel like some extra scary carnival ride." Lily said thoughtfully as she tried to stand up, only to find herself back in a heap on the floor as her leg gave out under her.

Curious, Lily tried to move her leg, but it wouldn't budge, "I think my leg is broken," she announced cheerily.

Rebecca looked at Lily before saying, "I can't feel my legs, I think I broke my back."

"Your spine!?" Lily exclaimed, automatically panicked.

"Yeesh Lils, this is the wizarding world, remember? A broken back is no worse than a broken toe." Rebecca said amused, before frowning in irritation.

"What's wrong Bec? Didn't you want broken bones, so why the long face?"

"I wanted a broken arm, not a broken spine! I was counting on us being able to walk or at least crawl to the infirmary. But how can I do that now?"

"Fine, so we wait an hour or so for help to come," Lily said shrugging.

"Help? And who exactly is going to help us? Associate themselves with US? Petunia and Betty have gone out of their way to make it clear to the entire school, that we are lowly losers and to talk to us is to degrade oneself." Rebecca said grumpily.

"Great, looks like I'll be dragging you along then." Lily said, stretching out her hands only to realize one of her hands hadn't moved. "Great a broken arm, alright Beccy you're going to have to drag your body along with your arms and I'm going to attempt a one armed one legged crawl.

Rebecca groaned, "But I can already tell this is going to be hell, thankfully the infirmary is close by," Rebecca ended optimistically.

2 metres later the two girls dropped to the ground puffing and out of breath.

"This is one hell of a workout," Rebecca stated exhausted. "We are NEVER doing this again."

"I can't believe I let you talk me int-" Lily was cut off by a door opening a few spaces down the hall.

Madame Pomfrey strode out of the infirmary with her nose buried deeply in a newspaper. The daily prophet probably.

Lily and Rebecca exchanged a swift glance before wailing at the top of their lungs. Neither of them were doing a particularly good job at fake sobbing/screaming, but it was enough to catch the nurse's attention and their injuries were enough to distract her from scrutinizing their terrible act too closely.

Madame Pomfrey rushed over to the pair whipping out her wand, in no time at all she had them levitating in mid-air, while she speedily dashed into the infirmary she had just left, with the two girls sailing through the air behind her.

Once the trio were securely inside the infirmary, Madame Pomfrey lowered the two sobbing girls onto two beds side by side. She then strode over to her storage cupboards and pulled out two vials, each filled with a thick purple, sludgy looking substance. She then forced the sludge down each girl's throat before dashing back behind a closed door to retrieve something else.

Lily and Rebecca simultaneously gagged.

"Eugh, tastes worse than polyjuice!" Rebecca cried disgusted.

"Just what exactly was that!?" Lily spluttered out, while fighting her instincts to spit out the awful flavour left in her mouth all over the floor.

A sudden click resounded throughout the infirmary signifying that Madame Pomfrey had returned and reminded the girls that they had a role to play. Lily and Rebecca immediately resumed their previous sobbing state.

Madame Pomfrey frowned in concern.

"I thought the pain would be gone by now, usually the flobberworm mucus acts immediately on reducing pain once it's entered the system… I'll have to give you girls another dosing."

Lily and Rebecca immediately shut up, causing Madame Pomfrey to raise her eyebrows.

"Err, you know I don't think I was in any pain for the last couple of minutes, I think I was just crying because I was expecting it to still hurt, kind of like the pain was my imagination…" Lily hurriedly told Madame Pomfrey, who gave her an unconvinced look.

"Irresponsible children..." she muttered under her breath, shaking her head and giving them both another vial to drink from.

Madame Pomfrey then walked closer to Lily's bed and gave her a quick scan, "Can you raise your arm?"

Lily breathed out a sigh of relief before quickly raising her arm; she had been expecting an interrogation.

"Good, now can you stand up for me?" Lily obliged and was happy to see should could do so.

"Excellent, you Miss Evans are free to go, however I would advise you not to overuse your arm or leg for the day, don't try to hop or do things one armed. Okay?"

"Sure, but isn't Rebecca coming?" Lily asked concerned.

"Miss Brandee will have to remain with me for a bit longer I'm afraid, spines take a while to heal, however she should be free to go by lunchtime. Now you'd better leave, you're already late enough, first hour is almost over."

"Could you please write a note then? Explaining me and Rebecca's absence from class." Lily asked hopefully.

Lily and Madame Pomfrey were both surprized to hear a laugh coming from Rebecca's bed and both turned to look at her.

When she continued to laugh, Madame Pomfrey threw her a stern look before once again exiting the room, this time to collect a quill and parchment.

"What?" Lily asked confused.

"You're going to have to explain to Professor Mocha alone you know." She said, continuing to laugh.

"Why?"

"What do you mean 'why?' if we want to be allowed to take the test late, it can't be too late, or she'll say no. It'll be our own problem for not coming to her sooner. And that note you just requested is going to tell her exactly what time we were both dismissed from the hospital wing, she'll no we had time to come to her. This means you've got to go now, alone, as I'm stuck in this bed."

Lily groaned. "You mean I have to face Professor Mocha alone!? But she hates me!"

Rebecca tried hard to look sympathetic, but instead started to laugh again, much to the annoyance of Madame Pomfrey who had just returned in the room, with a piece of parchment in her hand. She handed the note to Lily before shooing her out of the room.

**#########$$$$$$$$$$$$$&&&&&&& **

The four marauders stood slightly hunched over in a narrow dusty tunnel, which broke away into two passages.

"What do you think?" Sirius asked his friends, looking around at the tunnel.

"A bit dusty and short, but definitely usable." Remus answered, "Do both of the ways lead to Hogsmeade though?"

"I'm not sure," James told him frowning, "This map only shows this tunnel to have one pathway."

"Maybe it's sealed off," Remus suggested.

"Only one way to find out," Sirius said eagerly. "What do you reckon wormy, left or right?"

Peter peered down both paths; they looked the exact same, except the one on the left was partially covered by a cob web.

"Right."

"Right it is," and the four boys immediately headed down the right tunnel, careful to not hit their heads on the roof.

After following the dark path for about 15 minutes James caught a glimpse of light in the distance, "I think we're almost there," he informed the others.

A couple of minutes later they reached what appeared to be a dead end, however noticing the light shining on the ground the boys looked up to see a trap door above them on the ceiling of the tunnel, there was sunlight shining through the cracks of the door indicating the passage ended somewhere outside.

Remus and Peter gave James a leg-up and he pushed the door open and climbed through, James looked around at their surroundings while Peter and Remus climbed up next to him and pulled Sirius up.

"You know, I think we're at the back of quality quidditch supplies," James observed.

"Clever," Remus said looking down at the now closed trapdoor, the door camouflaged into the ground by having grass grown over it, also as a means of opening it, there was a rock stuck to the door which served as a doorhandle. "You'd never expect there to be a passage here would you?" he asked rhetorically.

"Well this passage is clearly usable, how many more are there to check?" Sirius asked James.

"3, we should probably find the Hogsmeade entrance of the next pathway, see if it leads back to Hogwarts then find the next Hogwarts entrance and see if it leads back to Hogsmeade and the last like the first, then when we're back at school, we'll check out that other tunnel and see where it leads."

"Sounds good," Remus said "But when we get back to Hogwarts before finding the next passage let's get the teachers to cancel classes, I don't want to miss out on too many classes."

** $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$######################### **

"Professor! Professor Mocha!" Lily cried out, running down the mysteriously empty hall to catch up to the professor.

Lily frowned looking around confused.

_Strange, why is the school so quiet? Period 2 is about to start, the corridors should be filled with students… _

Professor Mocha cleared her throat expectantly, giving Lily an irritated look.

"Oh right," she started, shaking off her previous thoughts, "I just wanted to apologize for missing this morning's class."

The professor raised her eyebrows, but didn't say anything.

Lily hastily continued.

"Me and Rebecca accidently fell down the stairs, it was a horrible accident actually, we spent the period in the hospital wing, I have a note here from Madame Pomfrey." Lily quickly told her, she held out the note to the professor, who made no move to take it.

"Well," Lily continued, shifting uncomfortably, "We're willing to make up the class; we'll take the test whenever you wan-" Lily tried to finish, before the professor cut her off.

"The inability to walk straight, is not a plausible excuse to miss my class Miss Evans, under usual circumstances I would not allow you to take the test, however-"

"-Since you're in a good mood you will just this once?" Lily interrupted hopefully.

"However, as you, along with the rest of your class have yet to sit the test, due to a certain Hogsmeade trip, it seems only reasonable that you should." The professor said sneering down at a surprized Lily.

_There's a Hogsmeade trip today? Oh bugger. At least that explains the school's silence._

"However I find your eagerness to sit the test early most intriguing, if not arrogant and filled with self-assurance, and I will not be the one to deprive you. I'll be expecting you in my office at lunch." The professor said before turning sharply around and striding down the hall.

She didn't get far before stopping and turning back around, "Oh and Miss Evans, if you're late because of any more little 'accidents,' then it will be your own time you're wasting and you will be granted no extra."

Lily didn't stand around waiting for the professor to come back with anymore unfair punishments, she quickly spun on her heel and stomped down the other side of the corridor in the opposite direction that Mocha had gone. She then grumpily made her way to the hospital wing.

**############ %%%%%%%%%%%%%% ###########**

"You're joking!"

"Does it look like I'm joking?"

"We have to sit the test early!?"

"Not you, just me."

"Are you sure you didn't misunderstand that part? I mean we were in this together…"

"Yeah, but Mocha only hates me, not you."

"You're being paranoid Lils, it's probably because I'm in the hospital wing, she has no idea I'll be out by lunch time."

"For all she knows you could have been out at the same time as me, considering she never read the note."

"Oh come on! Teachers gossip more than students do! Madame Pomfrey's probably told the whole staff everything." Rebecca said with certainty.

"You think we're the discussion of teacher's conversation?" Lily asked amused.

"Yes. What else do they talk about over meals? Surely not their subjects!"

"And this conversation started with YOU calling ME paranoid…"

"You are."

"I'd tell you to take your meds, but I think you've already overdosed."

"Hey!" Rebecca cried out indignantly throwing a pillow at Lily's head.

Lily merely side stepped it and raised her eyebrows, "You moved your arm with quite a bit of force, I take it your spine's healing pretty quick." She then got up and made her way to the door.

"Oi! Where are you going? You're not really going to let a little pillow chase you out now are you?" Rebecca asked, frowning at the idea of once again being left alone with no company.

"Well it was very scary," Lily reprimanded her, rolling her eyes, earning a glare from Rebecca.

"Ease up Bec, if YOU had a test at lunch and thankfully a few free periods to study in, you would be ditching your friend, the one responsible for your misfortune, for some peace and quiet, as well."

"I don't see what the big deal is," Rebecca said as Lily reached the door. "You were supposed to have done the test this morning, but instead you're doing it this afternoon, you're not doing it early you're doing it late."

"You seemed to have had a clearer understanding of the problem with that 15 minutes ago, when you thought you would be sitting the test with me." Lily muttered. "The rest of the class has until tomorrow to do the test! They have an unfair advantage," Lily grumbled pouting.

"hmmm, speaking of unfair advantages, make sure you memorise all the questions for me!" Rebecca said grinning.

"I'll do my best, scouts honour," Lily said before opening the door and leaving the infirmary.

Lily quickly headed back to the Gryffindor common room, not wanting to waste anymore of her study time. When she got there she went straight to the girls dormitory, she barely paid any mind to the small group of girls who were already in her dorm, she grabbed her book bag and went straight back down to the common room, where she placed her stuff down by the fire and made herself comfortable in a large warm armchair.

_I suppose it is pretty lucky the Marauders decided today to be the day for their next Hogsmeade trip. _Lily thought, contently taking note of the fact that the common room was practically empty, aside from a small group of first and second years who weren't yet daring enough to try and sneak passed Filch and go into Hogsmeade.

Lily opened her Defence Against The dark Arts text book and immediately submerged herself into its pages; she pulled out a quill and some parchment and hastily began taking notes on what she was reading.

Lily continued this way for about half an hour uninterrupted before a sudden familiar laugh caused her to jump slightly and close her book in her face.

Lily looked up to see Petunia Eves, the girl who went out of her way to make Lily's life a living hell, smirking at her.

"Fancy seeing you here Evans, I'm surprized you're not enjoying a Hogsmeade visit with the rest of the school," she said sweetly, and then feigning a sudden thoughtful expression she went on, "Oh wait that's not actually surprizing, I guess it'd be hard to enjoy a shopping trip when you can't afford so much as a toothpick."

Lily's ears began to turn red while Petunia with the rest of her friends started laughing.

Petunia then leaned over and whispered something else to the group, causing them to laugh even harder.

Lily gritted her teeth together in anger, digging around in her pocket she found a tooth pick, then holding it between two fingers she prepared to fling it into the unsuspecting Petunia's hair.

Petunia, choosing that precise moment to look at Lily again noticed the tooth pick, and guessing Lily's intent, smiled even wider than before.

"Oh no, don't waste that dirty thing on me Evans, who knows when you'll be able to afford another? I'll tell you what, you be nice and I'll raise a charity for you, I'm sure I'll make enough to send you an _entire _packet of toothpicks for Christmas."

It took every inch of Lily's self-control not to pull out her wand and curse Petunia right then and there. She reminded herself that doing so would only be sending the message that she had no retorts for Petunia, and she didn't… so Lily decided to be the bigger person, by grounding her teeth together and turning back to her book. She held her bracelet in her hand, Lily had been wearing this bracelet her entire life and always held onto it when she was feeling a particularly strong emotion as it always calmed her down.

Lily's bracelet was quite a beautiful thing. The bracelet appeared to have multiple lily's tangling together to form what looked like a solid silver chain with random blue diamonds (in appearance) carefully woven into the design, appearing like water drops and finally with a beautiful emerald lily sitting in the centre of the bracelet. Lily turned her bracelet over to read the message engraved into the inside of it 'A lily that floats in water is a lily that will never drown.' Overall the bracelet appeared highly expensive, but lily doubted it was worth much, outside of sentimental value anyway. Her parents had told her it was a gift given to her as a baby from her grandmother, before she had passed away.

Petunia noticed the pretty bracelet in Lily's hands and sneered, it was no doubt a worthless imitation. She then turned back to her friends and said in a loud carrying voice, "have I told you about father's new arrangements?" her tone was loud and filled with self-importance, clearly she wanted to be over heard.

"Is it the one about James, what you were going to tell us before but then changed your mind about?" One of her minions, Sally-Anne Bentley, asked her eagerly.

"Oh yes," Petunia said looking around airily, and then as if it were a secret leaned in closer to her friends, but still continued in the same loud voice, "Father tells me he's been speaking with Mr and Mrs Potter, according to them James is extremely eager for my hand." The group around Petunia all gasped unanimously.

Lily who had overheard had to choke back a laugh at that, Petunia who was theatrically holding out her hand heard her anyway. She then turned her icy glare on Lily.

"Something funny you homeless beggar?" she snarled.

Lily looked back at Petunia's long bony hand, tipped with long pointy nails.

"I'm sorry but who on earth's name would be interested in that ugly hand?" Lily asked both amused and angry by Petunia's comments.

Petunia glowered darkly at Lily, "not my hand you blistering fool, my hand in _marriage."_

Petunia's statement confused Lily, from what she had seen over the years Petunia along with 99% of the school's female population were all interested, romantically, in James Potter, but James had never given any indication of returned feelings from what Lily had seen. Not to mention James and Petunia weren't even together, so why would he want to marry her?

Lily didn't think too much about this, as she really didn't care, she couldn't understand why Petunia was choosing to tell her this either. Of all the things to boast about and try to make Lily jealous over, she chooses James Potter?

Lily merely shrugged before returning to her book. Petunia frowned at this, she herself wasn't entirely certain about why she had told Lily about her parents and the Potters' trying to arrange a marriage between her and James, she hadn't even wanted her friends to know about it yet after all it wasn't certain, and it would be embarrassing if it never happened. But for some reason Lily Evans made Petunia feel threatened, it was an age old feeling that she had first felt when the two had met in first year. The feeling was inexplicable and it made absolutely no sense to Petunia, but it was definitely there.

Looking back at Lily who was now peacefully reading her text book Petunia suddenly felt angry, really, really angry. Angry that Lily, a poor nobody had the ability to make her, Petunia Eves, heir to the Eves' fortune and possible fiancé to James Potter, feel threatened.

Petunia deciding to take her anger out on Lily suddenly surged forward, noticing that Lily still had her bracelet held loosely in her fist. Petunia snatched it out of her hand and ran to a window and pulled it open, then using all the strength she had she childishly threw Lily's bracelet out the window.

Petunia watched satisfied as the bracelet sailed through the air and landed in a distant tree. She was knocked out of her thoughts by a body that was Lily's who had roughly shoved her out of the way. Lily leaned out of the window and frantically searched around to see if she could spot her bracelet. When she realized she couldn't she pulled her head back inside and turned around and glared straight at Petunia.

"What did you do!?" Lily cried angrily, tears prickling her eyes.

"I did you a favour. That worthless piece of garbage was hideous and an eye saw. It screamed 'Fake!' louder then you screamed right now, I saved you from the embarrassment of continuing to wear that thing." Petunia snarled, sneering down at Lily, before Lily could do anything in retaliation petunia spun on her heal and glided back to her friends, who were having a laugh over her prank.

Lily stood fuming for a moment, considering continuing the fight before she decided that her bracelet was more important to her, and she needed to find it before somebody else did and threw it in the bin.

And why wouldn't they?

Petunia was right, Lily's bracelet was worthless, Lily could not afford expensive jewellery.

_But still,_ Lily thought angrily, _my bracelet isn't worthless to me, I've had it my whole life, since I was a baby, mum and dad told me grandma gave it to me as a first birthday present, I wish she was alive so that I could thank her. And either way Petunia hardly glanced at my bracelet before she threw it out a window, she couldn't have known that it was a fake, not with just one glance, besides according to Rebecca, when she first met me, my bracelet is a practically perfect imitation of real silver and diamonds. _Lily continued on in thought as she flitted down the staircase and headed for a door that lead to the courtyard.

**Flashback:**

_Lily shyly opened a door to a compartment and was relieved to see it was almost empty aside from a small brunette girl who looked up at her and smiled._

"_Do you mind if I sit here?" Lily asked nervously._

"_Sure, no problem, there's plenty of room in here!" The girl answered and Lily quickly sat down across from her._

"_I'm Rebecca, but you can call me bec or beccy if you want." The small brunette said, staring brightly at Lily through her pretty hazel eyes._

"_I'm Lily, just Lily" Lily replied before shyly putting her hand in the girl's outstretched one._

"_Lily. I like it! I think I'll call you Lils then!" The easily excitable girl said, before enthusiastically shaking Lily's hand._

"_Say, that's a beautiful bracelet you got there, looks expensive, are those real blue diamonds? My parents won't let me wear diamonds to school, they say I'm too irresponsible and will lose them. What family do you come from anyway?" _

"_The Evans family," Lily replied uncertainly._

"_Evans…? Evans? Evans?" the girl muttered to herself, appearing to be deep in thought, Possibly trying to recall a name she'd never heard. _

_All of a sudden she perked up, "Are you from France? You know you don't really sound French…"_

"_No, I'm from England" Lily replied baffled by the odd girl and the odd question. If she were French, why would she go to school in England?_

"_Oh I'm sorry, It's just I don't know who you are," Rebecca told her bluntly._

"_Oh right…." Lily said, more confused than ever, "I'm Lily Ev-"_

"_I know!" Rebecca interrupted laughing, "what are you telling me again for?"_

"_You said you don't know who I am," Lily mumbled._

"_Oh sorry I wasn't too clear was I? I mean I don't know your family, you see all the rich wizarding families know each other somehow, we're all in the same big circle, going to the same big parties, so I thought I would have heard of you, even if you were muggleborn, the rich are all connected, whether they be magic or muggles, although we are less connected to muggles." Rebecca informed her cheerfully._

"_Oh," Lily mumbled her cheeks beginning to warm, "I'm not rich."_

_Rebecca started to laugh, "Right, which would explain why you're wearing a bracelet worth millions at least."_

_Lily looked down in surprize at her bracelet._

"_This? Oh no, this wouldn't be worth more than 20 dollars on the market. It's not real."_

"_Really? That's a really good imitation then, how much did it cost?" Rebecca asked curiously._

"_I'm not sure," Lily said shrugging, "I've never asked, my grandma bought it for me on my first birthday, even if I wanted to ask her now I couldn't, she died when I was young." _

"_Oh I'm sorry to hear that," Rebecca said, shifting awkwardly not meaning to bring up death, before suddenly asking, because she couldn't seem to help herself, "But you're sure it isn't real?" while looking sceptically at the bracelet._

_Lily laughed, she found Rebecca to be so easy to talk to, "Positive, my family can't afford those nifty kinds of toys." _

"_Oh well!" Rebecca said grinning, "you know what they say; fake jewellery real friends, real jewellery fake friends!" _

"_That's a saying? How come I've never heard of it?" Lily asked, already loving the maker of the quote._

"_Probably because I just made it up," Rebecca told her, cheerful as ever._

_The two girls looked at each other, before Lily fell off the seat laughing, half in humour, half in relief, she had found a friend! And indeed that day was the start of a beautiful friendship._

**End of Flash back.**

Lily smiled, slightly cheered after thinking about her first train ride to Hogwarts, but remembering she had a goal and no time to be distracted she quickly ran out the door that lead to the courtyard and walked along the side of the castle until she reached the place directly below where she knew the Gryffindor common room was.

Lily immediately began searching through the long grass, desperate to find her bracelet. She didn't care that the long grass was making her sneeze and itch; all she cared about was finding her bracelet.

After 20 minutes of seemingly pointless searching Lily suddenly remembered something. Something very important and very obvious; Lily was a witch. Smacking her palm against her forehead Lily pulled out her wand and excitedly called out "Accio bracelet!"

Nothing happened.

Lily frowned, but then thought about it, perhaps she hadn't been specific enough, after all there were many bracelets in the world, so clearing her throat she tried again.

"Accio Lily's bracelet!"

Silence.

"Accio Lily Evans bracelet!"

More silence.

"ACCIO MY BRACELET!"

And even more silence.

Lily groaned in anger before kicking the ground. It made no sense, the summoning charm always worked on non-magic objects.

The only time it didn't work was if the object had been charmed to be accio resistant, like almost every piece of magical jewellery as it prevented theft. However Lily had never once placed the charm on her own bracelet, assuming no one would ever want to steal it.

So who had?

Unless…

_Surely my bracelet isn't a magical bracelet? I'm the only witch in my family, surely grandma wasn't a witch. _Lily thought in confusion, before nodding her head decisively. _No grandma wasn't a witch, she either bought this bracelet off magic folk, or someone else, like bec, charmed it for me._

Lily ignored the glaring fact that Rebecca was terrible at charms, and the charm itself was highly advanced. She also ignored the fact that no one else with magical abilities would go out of their way like that for her.

Lily sighed and continued to search through the grass. She didn't know how long she had been searching for when suddenly an amused voice interrupted her.

"You're still here?"

Lily turned around to see a tall boy with wavy blonde hair, and happy blue eyes smiling down at her.

Lily simply stared and didn't say anything.

"I'm Ethan Johnson," The boy said, happily holding out his hand for Lily to take.

"I know," Lily blurted out, blushing slightly, "We're in the same year, you're in Ravenclaw."

Ethan laughed lightly and continued smiling, before looking at Lily expectantly.

"I'm Lily Evans," she told him quickly, shaking his outstretched hand.

"I wish I could say I knew that," he told her, "so I was saying, you're still out here? I saw you here about 3 hours ago, how long have you been out here for anyway?"

Lily frowned and pulled a face, not liking to be reminded about why she was outside.

"I'm not sure, I lost track of time a while ago," she told him. _That is a good question though, _she thought as she felt her stomach rumble.

Ethan laughed again, "Looks like your stomachs telling you it's time to get some lunch."

"I can't, I need to find my bracelet." Lily told him upset.

"So that's why you're out here," he said, before suddenly looking around, he continued his searching, without moving a muscle.

Lily looked on amused, "You know, I appreciate the thought, but to find something like a bracelet you usually need to see it up close, so looking in the distance won't do any good…" Lily trailed off as Ethan suddenly smiled down at her.

"You think so? I disagree, sometimes in order to find what you're looking for you need to look outside your little square." He told her before walking over to a tree a few metres away, he then began to climb the tree until he was about a metre up, where he then stretched out his arm and appeared to pull a leaf out of the tree before heading back to Lily with a huge smile on his face.

Lily raised her eyebrows amused, until she noticed what was in his hands.

"My bracelet!" she cried out running to him, "How did you know?"

"The diamonds on this sparkle like nobody's business in the little sunlight we have today, hard not to notice really. Now, since you got your bracelet back, how about we get some lunch?"

"Lunch?" Lily question horrified, "it's lunch-time!?"

"10 minutes in actually…"

"Oh bugger," was what Lily said before sprinting as fast as she could in the direction of professor Mocha's office.

**A/N**

**So, I hoped you guys liked the chapter, tell me if you did! I forced myself to finish writing it, because guess what! GUESS! Today is a very special day. Today Merlin season 5 is starting! YAY! I'm soooooo excited! Anyway, I'm sorry if you didn't like the chap, please tell me if you didn't, I like constructive criticism, I also like feedback. So thankyou heaps to my two reviewers.**

**Nedermg: Thankyou a thousand for your advice, I was so glad that you reviewed and in a helpful way too!**

**Lighty1172: You were my first reviewer, and when I saw that I had a reviewer and read that you loved my story I felt so giddy and happy, you really made my day!**

**And lastly thankyou to all my followers, because following is like feedback. It told me you liked my story, so thank you!**


	3. Chapter 3

**Long Lost**

**DISCLAIMER: I most unfortunately do not own Harry Potter, its plot or any of its character's. All belongs to the wonderful J.K Rowlings!**

'_He's not underground,_

_He's not in the air,_

_He's not in that book you take everywhere,_

_The devil wears a suit,_

_He lives in our town,_

_He lives on our street,_

_In your home, in your bed'_

_Kate Miller-Heidke, 'the devil wears a suit.'_

**Chapter 3**

"And we're done," Remus lupin said as he and his friends closed the portrait that was the Hogwarts entrance to the final passage they had been checking up on.

"Finally," Sirius said yawning and stretching. All the passages had been long, dusty and dark, one had been infested with cockroaches and another had been a waste of time as its Hogsmeade exit had been sealed off, making it inaccessible and unusable.

"Done?" Peter questioned as the group began instinctively heading towards the kitchens; lunch wasn't over yet, however it had been going long enough for the best food to be gone. "Weren't we going to check out the other tunnel on the first passage?"

Sirius groaned and threw a glare in Peter's direction, "Thanks for the reminder Wormy," he muttered while his stomach grumbled.

"We can always go another time," Remus suggested; he was also hungry and tired.

"No," James answered for the group, "We're almost finished now, and I don't want to have to come another time, your stomach can wait."

He then turned on his heels and began heading towards the nearest staircase, the passage had been located behind a portrait on the second floor. The other marauder's begrudgingly followed behind him.

In almost no time at all they had reached the portrait of an old man with a curly grey wig on, who resembled an old muggle judge. He raised his eyebrows at seeing the group back so soon.

"Inferniatto," James said, before the old man tried to start a conversation, as he had the time before. The group stepped back as the portrait swung open, revealing the dark, dusty passage.

They headed through the passage and down the one way corridor without a pause until they reached the fork in the tunnel.

James pulled out his wand and banished the cobweb that covered half of the tunnel on the left, and without any hesitation began to lead the way down it.

The marauder's walked for what seemed like ages, but was in reality only a few minutes, before they reached another portrait, exchanging a look they continued until they were directly in front of it.

The portrait was one of a young girl who looked no older than 10, she had big brown eyes and short blonde pigtails and was watching the group intently.

"Err, hello," Remus greeted her uncertainly, the girl frowned in answer and sat down in the shade of a tree, which resided in her portrait. The portrait showed the girl to be in a forest, she was surrounded by trees and flowers, however there was nobody else in the photo, there was only her and a few birds.

"Open," James said, looking at her expectantly.

"Wrong," she answered, pulling a flower apart with her fingers.

"Excuse me?" James said irritated.

"Closer," She said throwing him a smile revealing two dimples. "To the password," she added, figuring James had yet to realise there was a password.

"I hired someone to find out the passwords to any passages already," James snapped.

The girl simply shrugged, "Your first guess was closer."

James glowered, "What's behind your portrait?"

"What do you think's behind my portrait?" She asked mysteriously, although she was secretly happy over having some company.

James losing interest in the girl's games and cryptic answers, pulled out his wand and muttered a string of charms, intended to remove the portrait.

The girl looked at him before yawning and curling up in a ball, preparing herself for a nap. She wondered how long it would take the boys' to realise they couldn't break the enchantments keeping her there. Her portrait had been spelled by the original founders of Hogwarts, getting past her required a password and nothing less.

After 15 minutes of Remus and James trying to cast the portrait away, Sirius lost his patience and surged forward, attempting to pull the portrait from the wall without the aid of magic. Of course nothing happened.

Sirius groaned before Peter joined him and thumped on the wall surrounding the portrait, attempting to crack a hole through it.

Another 5 minutes later and the Marauders were on their way back out of the passage, tired, hungry, dissatisfied and annoyed.

"I knew it wouldn't be worth missing lunch," Sirius muttered under his breath.

* * *

**Ignore this if you want, it's random…**

**A/N: I would just like to say, my neighbours are playing REALLY loud irritating music right now, the same awful song they've been playing all day, there are no lyrics and the tune goes like this: Boo-Boo-Boo-BOOM-Boo-boo-boo-BOOM-boo-boo-boo. And it goes on and on and on… and it is destroying my train of thought. SO, if I stuff up and write something stupid that doesn't make sense, we all know who to blame. Any who, I am now attempting to drown that nonsense out with Taylor swift, 'begin again', good song, you should take a listen to it…**

**How many of you didn't ignore this?**

* * *

Lily nervously knocked on the door to Professor Mocha's office, jumping from foot to foot as she waited for a reply.

"Enter," she heard the professor's cold voice through the door, which she slowly opened before stepping into the classroom with trepidation.

Lily looked across the room at Professor Mocha. The professor was sitting at her desk; she had her head down and appeared to be marking papers.

Lily continued forward uncertainly, until she was standing before the professor, who finally raised her head.

She looked at Lily coldly with a barely contained out of place smile on her face. Not a nice smile mind you, a mocking, punishment-promising smile. The professor simply said "your time," before nodding towards a small desk which had been placed in front of her own, it already had an overturned booklet and a quill readily placed on it.

Lily swallowed and looked warily at the professor's smiling face, before quickly heading over to the desk and sitting down.

"You have 43 minutes to complete this test," The professor said, letting Lily know she had indeed lost some of her hour of test time, "You may turn over your paper and begin now," she finished.

Lily didn't wait to be told twice and immediately turned over her paper.

**Question 1.)**

**Outline in detail the similarities and differences between the characteristics of a magical rat and a magical mouse. Provide a diagram to support your answer.**

Lily stared down at the question in horror. Professor Mocha had only mentioned mice once in class, and she had been comparing them to squirrels.

Deciding to skip the question, Lily moved on to the second question.

**Question 2.)**

**The dementors kiss is one means of ridding a person of their soul, explain in depth another method of separating a person's soul from their body.**

Lily groaned; they had covered dementors in class, but never had they discussed what their abilities were similar to, these questions obviously required further reading.

_This is ridiculous, the question should be on dementors specifically, they _are_ one of the things we have been studying after all, not the soul._

Lily quickly skimmed through the next few questions only to realise they were equally difficult as the first two and equally as irrelevant to the topics they had been studying.

Lily glowered up at professor Mocha's bent down head, _Evil witch, wants us all to fail. _

As if sensing Lily's gaze on her the professor suddenly looked up and met Lily's gaze with her own cold one. She raised her eyebrows in mock curiosity and Lily was suddenly hit with the sense of a challenge; she felt as though Professor Mocha was challenging her.

Lily frowned and broke eye contact and missed the sudden disappointment that flashed across the professor's face.

Sighing she turned back to the first question of the test, Lily knew she was going to fail, but she was at least going to attempt to answer every question.

_Hmmm, what's different between rats and mice..?_

Lily thought for a moment before scribbling down an answer.

_Magical mice are a lot cuter then magical rats, their fur is also softer and they are smaller than rats. Magical rats are also smarter than magical mice; they can play games and jump ropes if they want to._

Lily then drew a diagram of a rat jumping with a skipping rope. She pulled a face; the drawing looked like it had been done by a 5 year old and her written answer also sounded as though it had been composed by a 5 year old. But it was something, and something is always better than nothing. She then moved onto question 2.

_How does a person lose their soul? _Lily thought frowning. Suddenly an idea came to her mind, she knew it wasn't the answer the professor wanted, but it was technically right.

_When a person dies they lose their soul, or at least their body does. _

Lily frowned again, the answer wasn't at all in depth and as this wasn't philosophy, a muggle subject, the answer Professor Mocha was looking for was clearly a more magical related one.

Lily shrugged and continued her test, answering each question in much the same way as she had the first two.

Once she was done her test, Lily looked through her booklet in irritation. All the questions had been rubbish, almost as rubbish as her answers. She took small comfort in knowing that it didn't matter that she had hardly studied, as she would never have known to study for these questions, she was also comforted by the fact that the rest of her classmates were bound to fail with her.

Lily looked at the clock hanging above the professor's desk; she still had fifteen minutes to go.

_I guess I didn't really miss any time after all._

She then proceeded to do her best to memorise as many questions as she could for Rebecca.

Lily jolted as a sudden thumping echoed throughout Professor Mocha's office.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

Both Lily and the professor stared warily at the wall behind Mocha's desk as the banging continued. Professor Mocha pulled out her wand from her pocket and pointed it readily at the wall, as though expecting it to blow at any second. The banging suddenly paused for a moment, then continued for another couple of minutes, until stopping again.

The student and professor waited for a bit in silence, however this time the banging didn't restart.

"Maybe the walls are infested with magical rats," Lily suggested slyly, "Causing a racket wouldn't happen to be one of their characteristics now would it?"

The professor didn't appreciate Lily's humour and snapped at her to continue her test. "You have three minutes left I suggest you use it wisely."

"I'm already finished the test professor…"

"Then check over your answers!" The professor snarled, beginning to lose her patience.

Lily considered informing Mocha that she had in fact checked over her answers, several times. But then decided that the professor was probably more shaken then she was by the wall rats, it was after all her office they were infesting. So Lily let the matter drop and fiddled with her quill for the remaining three minutes.

Mocha informed Lily when her time was up and Lily obediently handed in her paper, although the idea of accidently setting fire to it had crossed her mind several times.

Not wanting to stay in Mocha's rat infested office any longer than she had to, Lily immediately and eagerly headed towards the office door, before the professor's voice interrupted her.

"Oh and Miss Evans, although this most likely won't affect you in the least, I thought I might inform you that there is no point in you telling your peers the questions on their test, as you do not know them."

Lily shot the professor a questioning look, which was answered with a patronising smile.

"You sat a different test then the one they will sit, to ensure there is no cheating in my class."

Lily internally groaned, _Aw man, I wasted 15 minutes memorising questions for nothing._

She then simply nodded, before retreating out of the office.

Lily went straight to the kitchens, which were located directly below the great hall. The kitchens were concealed behind a portrait of a fruit ball, in order to open the portrait Lily tickled the pear in the fruit ball which squealed and revealed a green doorknob. Lily had accidently and miraculously discovered the kitchens in her second year at Hogwarts, when she had tripped on her shoelaces just as she was passing the portrait, her hands had shot out to break her fall and landed on the pear, which suddenly began laughing.

Lily smiled fondly at the memory before climbing through the door, she smiled as she was immediately greeted with a bunch of house elves, all running towards her, ever eager to please. Lily knelt down so she was eye level with the elves and smiled warmly at all of them.

"Mistress Lily!" They all chorused in sync, ducking their heads, which caused Lily to laugh.

"Hello Pluto, Bonco, Yippi, Blippet, Detto, Blinky, **(A/N: BLINKY BILL!- only aussies will understand:)**, Lily happily greeted all of them.

"What can Blippet get for Mistress Lily today?" Blippet asked eagerly.

Lily thought about it for a moment, "Do you have any treacle tart?"

Blippet nodded his head eagerly, his large ears flapping about, before dashing off to bring Lily a large serving of tart.

Lily suddenly heard voices from the other side of the kitchen and moved forward until she was out of the doorway and could see clearly ahead of her.

Lily suddenly froze, sitting at the back of the kitchen, stuffing their faces were the marauders.

Lily quickly began to silently walk backwards, before her back suddenly made contact with the wall, she gasped in surprise and James Potter suddenly looked up in her direction, a frown gracing his features, she returned his gaze for a moment before she quickly spun around and ran out the door.

Lily quickly headed straight to the Gryffindor common room, years of being at Hogwarts had taught her to avoid the marauders, it was too risky being around them, one slip and she'd probably fall victim to their bullying, worse than the bullying she was used to. And the marauders could be bullies, if you upset them enough; she had seen it in action.

Lily reached the common room in no time, and went straight to the seventh year girls' dormitory and was hardly surprised to see Rebecca sitting on her bed waiting for her.

Rebecca looked up when Lily entered and put down the book she had been reading. Lily collapsed onto the bed next to her and closed her eyes in exhaustion.

Rebecca sat up and hit Lily with a pillow, "hey," hit, "get up."

Lily slowly opened her eyes and glared at Rebecca, who grinned.

"I believe you have some test questions to tell me," she said, Lily laughed, "bad news Bec, I sat a different test from the one you'll be taking, and I can't even help you with what kind of question will be on the test as they're all random and bogus. Just memorise every book in the library and you might pass." Rebecca groaned, "That bad?"

"Even worse." Lily answered, before letting her eyes wander around the room, they settled on Petunia Eves who was currently sitting with her friends Tasha Aiming, Bree Mitha and Patti Errends, they were the only other female Gryffindor seventh years, so naturally they all shared a dorm.

The three girls were currently surrounding Petunia, Patti was doing Petunia's hair into a pretty bun, Bree was helping apply her makeup and Tasha was finding shoes that matched Petunia's flashy, fancy dress.

Lily looked questioningly at Rebecca, who rolled her eyes, and mouthed the word 'date' at her, before pulling a face.

Lily found this strange, as earlier that very day Petunia had told Lily that she was engaged to James Potter, so why would she be going on a date? Unless it was with Potter, but Lily had seen him recently and he certainly didn't look like he was readying himself for a date like Petunia was.

But then, Lily concluded, girls often prepare for dates earlier than necessary. She then yawned and prepared herself for an early night.

* * *

The seventh year Gryffindor boys dormitory was quite loud as an energetic Sirius Black, battled an equally competitive Remus Lupin in a game of exploding snap, with Peter Pettigrew cheering them on and James Potter looking on in amusement.

"SNAP!" both Remus and Sirius shouted, their hands landing on the pile of cards in sync. Sirius cried out in indignation when the pile suddenly blew up in his face.

"No way!" He cried out, turning to James, "You saw that Prongs didn't you!? I got the pile first!"

"Sorry Padfoot, but the cards know best, looks like Moony's reflexes beat yours again." James said growing bored, because by 'again' he meant that this was the two's 19th match in a row. It was also the 19th time Sirius had lost.

"You fixed the cards up didn't you Moony?" Sirius said, frowning suspiciously at his friend.

Remus threw him an exasperated look, but otherwise didn't bother to answer.

"Did you see that!?" Sirius asked, once again turning to James, "He as good as admitted it!"

James however did not respond to his friend this time as he was currently distracted by an elegant deep brown owl pecking on his window.

James rarely ever saw this owl; however he had seen it enough times to recognise it. Frowning he opened the dormitory's window and let the owl swoop in.

The owl, which James recognised as his mother's, landed beside him and stuck out its leg expectantly.

James untied the letter it carried and it immediately flew back out the window. James scowled, the stupid owl never gave him a chance to write back to his mother, and then she would complain about his poor manners. If he sent another owl though she would be even more irritated, by assuming him to believe her owl to be unfit of carrying his letter and view it as an insult to her pet choice.

James opened the envelope and shook out the letter, his eyes scanned over the parchment before a light frown touched his face.

_James,_

_Your father and I have business to discuss with you, meet us for dinner at the 'Lady Pois' restaurant, at 7 sharp._

_Don't be late._

_-your mother. _

"What is it?" Peter asked him curiously.

James sighed, "It's from my mum, she wants me to join her for dinner tonight, says she has business to discuss."

Sirius snorted, "big surprise there." Whenever it came to James's mother, all that ever seemed to matter was business, not that Sirius's parents were any different, although they also cared a great deal about blood purity. As a matter of fact if it weren't for Sirius's connections, his own family probably would have disowned him by now for his opposing views on the matter of blood.

James suddenly looked at his wrist watch, it was 6:30, his mother sure didn't give him much notice. Groaning he got up and headed for the bathroom, if he dared meet his mother in a less than squeaky clean state, the scary woman would have his head.

15 minutes later James left the bathroom with nothing but a towel wrapped around his middle, his hair was slightly dripping, and his face was freshly shaved. He headed over to his closet and quickly pulled out a neat suit. The restaurant his mother wanted to meet at was a muggle one, which meant robes were out of the question.

In five minutes time James was finished dressing and already heading out the dormitory, he checked his watch again, he had ten minutes. Walking at a brisk pace, James reached Hogsmeade in 8, from there he apparated to a secluded alley a block away from the restaurant, and immediately started towards it. He arrived just as his watch declared it to be 7.

As he arrived at the restaurant a waiter pulled the door open for him and asked for his name.

"James Potter," James answered habitually.

The waiter looked through a list before pointing James in the direction of a table seated at the back of the restaurant, "Table 9, Mr Potter."

James could see his mother's trade mark black hair and immediately headed in her direction before he suddenly froze. Mrs Potter sat beside her husband Mr Potter, however directly across the two sat a man and a woman who James scarcely recognised from parties he'd attended in the past, but even more so recognised from multiple issues of the daily prophet.

His parents were having dinner with Mr and Mrs Eves, and surely enough on the other end of the table, directly across from where James was no doubt expected to sit, sat Petunia Eves.

James pulled a face and tried to turn around and leave, hoping to go unnoticed, except his mother chose that exact moment to look up at the door and their eyes met. She frowned at him looking extremely irritated, before she motioned with her hand for him to come, catching the rest of the occupants of the table's attention.

Defeated, James joined his family at the table and sat in the only seat that wasn't currently occupied. He politely smiled at the Eves and his father, and subtly threw a questioning look at his mother.

His mother ignored the look and turned to the Eves, "I'm sorry my son has kept you waiting for so long," she said throwing James another irritated look. "I told him to arrive at a quarter to 7, but the boy has absolutely no sense of time."

James glowered in his mother's direction, while the Eves assured her it was fine and the news to be announced would no doubt be worth the wait.

James snorted under his breath, what did that mean?

"Well then now that greetings are over with, shall we order are meals?" Mrs Eves asked, she was quite a nice looking woman James decided, nicer even then she looked in the photos. Mrs Eves had long red hair and a pale round face which appeared to be too warn for her age, she had pretty hazel eyes, which looked kind, however hidden behind there depths was a very subtle hint of sadness.

"Wonderful suggestion, Dawn," Mr Potter said signalling for a waiter, "I'll have the duck tarter," he told the waiter, who quickly wrote this down, the waiter then turned to the rest of the table who also gave him there orders, he then confirmed their orders and quickly left.

Mr Eves, a man with light brown her and captivating, big, emerald green eyes, attempted to start a conversation, "How has business been Esmeralda? I hope you've been teaching your son the tricks of the trade," he said turning to James.

James smiled, glad for the opportunity to get straight to the point, "Oh she has been, in fact one of the lessons mother has taught me is to always put business first and hardly ever leave it unattended, which makes me wonder why we're all here neglecting our duties on this fine evening."

Mr Eves smiled approvingly at James, liking his direct bluntness, before he turned to his wife who nodded, "James," James nodded, taking a sip from the glass of water placed in front of him, "Petunia," Petunia leaned forward eagerly, "The four of us believe it is time we united our families," James raised his eyebrows and took another sip of his drink before looking at his parents warily.

Mrs Potter continued for Mr Eves, "We have arranged a marriage between the two of you,"

James choked on his drink, Petunia gasped and feigned surprise.

James coughed and cleared his throat before staring hardly at his parents; this was exactly the kind of thing they would do for business.

"If you'll excuse me," he said, keeping up his polite charade for the Eves, "I need some air," and with that final remark he fluently stood up and headed for the door.

Mrs Eves and Mr Potter looked worriedly after James, while Mr Eves picked up his glass and toasted Mrs Potter, "To business," he said.

"To business," she replied, while watching her son's retreating form, "If you'll also excuse me for a moment," she said, standing and neatening her dress. She smiled thinly before leaving the table and following James out the door.

"And just what do you think you are doing right now?" Esmeralda Potter asked her son sharply as a waiter closed the restaurant door behind her.

James who had been standing a metre or two away from his mother with his back turned, slowly turned around to face her.

"What am _I _doing?" He asked angrily, the last thing on earth he wanted at that moment was to marry Petunia Eves.

Mrs Potter took a deep breath, "James there family has a lot of money," she said in a way that made her statement sound like it had cleared everything up and made everything alright.

"A lot of families do!" James retorted, "Including ours, so why do I need to get married?"

Mrs Potter began to lose the threads of her patience, "The Eves have business in areas that we don't! There will be more to gain from uniting our family with theirs, than any other. We knew that when you were born only a little after the two Eves girls were, this is a great business opportunity.

James raised his eyebrows, curious in spite of himself, "If you knew that when I was born, why didn't you betroth us then?"

"I did." Was her shameless reply.

"What?" James cut in surprised.

"Your father and I arranged a marriage between you and the younger Eves girl; you were to marry as soon as you graduated from Hogwarts."

James nodded, this sounded more like his mother, make arrangements years before anyone else thought to, then something she said registered, "Why the younger?" he asked curiously "Isn't it usually the older?"

Mrs Potter frowned unconcerned "When we first met them, you seemed to have taken a greater liking to Lillian, so we assumed a marriage with her was more likely to work out."

James almost smiled, feeling as though he had been granted with a way out of his predicament. "Then it was her I was meant to marry. It sounds like a betrayal to marry Petunia, I won't do it."

Mrs Potter had had enough of her son's antics and suddenly addressed him with her most commanding, no nonsense angry tone. "Do you have any idea how hard it was to convince the Eves to marry Petunia to you? _Do you think it was easy!?_ NO. They're still foolishly holding onto their other daughter with everything in them and marrying her sister to her would-have-been-spouse feels like replacing her to them! If it weren't for Petunia's eagerness to marry you and the idea of a larger fortune then the one they already have, hanging over their heads, they would have never agreed! So show me some gratitude!"

James stubbornly shook his head, "No, you chose Lillian to be the one I would marry, you can't change that now."

"Enough! You are merely looking for excuses! Your marriage is not about the girl's first name, it's about her last! And regardless, Lillian is long gone and we all know it!

"They say she's still alive!" James snapped, suddenly angry over his mother's easy dismissal of the girl.

Mrs Potter looked at him coldly, "And by the time they find her, _if_ they ever find her, you'll both be grey haired and old."

"You don't know that, I say we wait for her return," he was not going to give up this argument. His mother was probably right about Lillian being long gone, but hopefully he could use her as an excuse not to marry Petunia, and it would hopefully then be a while before Mrs Potter found another girl which she deemed suitable enough to marry him.

James was surprised when Mrs Potter suddenly smiled at him, a shallow smile, but a smile nonetheless. "Fine. You are quite correct, if Lillian were here now the two of you would not be married yet, not for another year, so I'll give her a year to be found, if not your marriage will continue, with or without her."

James groaned, there was just no winning with some people. And he could not see how he was going to get himself out of this mess through arguing.

"Fine," he snapped, "but I'm leaving, tell the Eves what you want, but I'm going back to Hogwarts." And with that he quickly glanced around, when he saw nobody lingering in the street he quickly disapparated into Hogsmeade, leaving his mother behind who watched his departure with a triumphant smile lighting her face.

* * *

The next day Lily woke up feeling wide awake and refreshed; she slowly got out of bed and noticed for once that she was the only person awake.

Lily walked over to the window and looked outside, it was still dark out, but she could see the beginnings of the sunrise in the distance. Deciding that this was a once in a life time opportunity to see the sunrise, as she almost always slept in, Lily decided to go out onto the grounds for a better view.

Lily put on a pair of slippers and quietly headed out of the dormitory and through the portrait hole, as she went down the staircase she did her best to be silent; the whole castle was quiet and she wasn't sure if she was even allowed up at this time.

Lily chose to go to the quidditch field as she loved the big open space, by the time she got there the sun had partially risen and it was a bit lighter out, she lay down on the soft grass and looked up into the pink sky, appreciating the rapidly changing colours.

She remained like this for another ten minutes, before she felt someone sit down next to her.

Lily shot up into a sitting position and looked to her right, sitting next to her was the newly acquainted Ethan Johnson, who was currently preoccupied with watching the sunrise.

Lily watched him until he finally returned her gaze, smiling as brightly as ever.

"Morning," he greeted her, turning back to the sun, "What brings you here on this fine morning?"

"I wanted to watch the sunrise," Lily answered him shrugging.

"Me too," He answered, before lapsing into silence.

Lily watched him briefly before deciding to thank him for yesterday, "Listen, about yesterday, I never did thank you properly for finding my bracelet, I just sort of ran off on you without any explanation,"

Ethan shrugged, "Don't mention it, I was happy to help, you never did tell me how it ended up in a tree though."

Lily stared at the sky but didn't answer, she sensed Ethan turning to look at her once again.

"Lily?" he asked.

"Someone threw it up there," she informed him nonchalantly.

"Petunia?" He immediately guessed, with an odd expression crossing his face.

"What makes you say that?" Lily asked curiously.

"I know Petunia and I know how she can be," he said looking into the distance, "Our families have always been close."

Lily wasn't at all surprised to hear this, most wealthy wizarding families were close.

"She's not always so bad you know." Ethan told her, thinking back to his childhood.

Lily snorted, causing him to laugh, "I'm sure,"

"Honestly, I thought you two might get along though," he mused under his breath, seemingly talking more to himself then he was to Lily.

"Why in the name of merlin's underpants would you ever think something like that!?" Lily asked horrified, did her and Petunia look like friends on the outside?

Ethan laughed and threw Lily a mysterious look, but otherwise didn't answer Lily's question, much to her annoyance.

Ethan once again looked up at the sky before turning to Lily, "The sun's fully risen now, so I think I'm going to head back, you should probably as well." He said getting up and offering Lily a hand.

"Good point," Lily said accepting his hand and also getting up.

The two headed towards the castle and continued together until they reached the staircase that lead to the Ravenclaw common room, Lily bid Ethan goodbye and continued on her way.

When Lily arrived back in her dormitory, she went over to wake up Rebecca. Although it was still way too early for her to wake up, Lily couldn't resist getting back at her for all the rude awakenings she had received from Rebecca in her life.

Lily pulled out one of the pillows from beneath Rebecca's head, swung her arm back with as much force as she could master, and unceremoniously pummelled the pillow into the sleeping girl's face. Rebecca's eyes snapped open, "What the-" but before she had time to finish what she was saying, she was hit in the face again.

Rebecca sprang out of bed, looked at the time, looked at the pillow in her friend's hand and then lunged at a now hysterical Lily.

Lily fled from the dormitory with an angry Rebecca charging after her. Lily stopped when there was a sofa between the two, and between gasps said, "Come on-" gasp, "Beccy-" gasp, "I just thought-" gasp, "that it would be nice-" wheeze, "to have a proper breakfast for once," Lily managed to get out.

"Right sure you did, and breakfast probably isn't even being served yet, but I see your point," Rebecca conceded, allowing Lily to walk over to her without getting attacked.

Once Lily was close enough, Rebecca quickly snatched a cushion off the nearest couch and threw it at Lily's face, "There, now we're even," she announced brightly.

Lily muttered something incomprehensible under her breath before the two headed back up to their dormitories to prepare for an early morning.

"mmmm, the food is way better at this time of the morning, the fruit seem to be riper, the strawberry Jam is sweeter, the butter on the toasts are spread perfectly, you know I think the house elves start off with brilliant food but then get lazy towards the end." Lily nodded absently as Rebecca continued her ramble. Rebecca finally seemed to notice her friend's lack of attention and tried to see what was distracting her.

Rebecca followed Lily's gaze until it reached the Ravenclaw table, from there it wasn't hard to figure who had caught Lily's attention considering there were only 2 Ravenclaws dumb enough, as Ravenclaw is generally a smart house, to be up at this ungodly hour. One was a third year girl and the other was a seventh year boy, it didn't take a genius to figure out who had caught Lily's eye.

Rebecca kicked Lily under her seat, causing Lily to jump and knock over her pumpkin juice. Lily glared at Rebecca, who took no notice of this, however instead chose to wave her spoon in Lily's face, "Ho Ho Ho! What do we have here?" She asked eagerly.

"A bad impersonation of Santa," Lily said dodging the real question.

"Excuse me! I make a brilliant Santa!" Rebecca cried indignantly.

"Santa, doesn't brandish spoons around, he'd scare away all the children."

Rebecca stuck out her tongue before placing her elbow on the table and cupping her chin in her palm, she pointedly looked behind her in the direction of the Ravenclaw table then looked back at Lily with a smug look on her face, while she waggled her eyebrows suggestively, "Caught you staring."

Lily looked back innocently, while her ears began to redden, "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Of course you don't. So when did you start crushing on Johnson?" Rebecca asked curiously.

"I'm not crushing on anyone," Lily snapped, "But I met him yesterday, it doesn't matter anyway," Lily grumbled looking around at the great hall, which was slowly filling with students.

Rebecca snorted and threw her friend a disbelieving look, "sure you aren't. Just the same, don't get _too_ close to Johnson, okay?"

Lily frowned at her friend's request, "why not?"

Rebecca hesitated; she didn't want her best friend getting into any relationships with the wealthy, they would never work out. Any guy from this school who Lily ever dated would most likely consider her a short-time fling due to her social standing, and she didn't want to see her best friend being hurt that way. And although Rebecca was sure Lily already knew this, she still didn't want to say it. "He's Petunia's cousin. And nothing says _bad blood _like being related to the Eves."

"He's Petunia's cousin!?" Lily asked surprized, _so that's what he meant by their families being close, bugger guess he really _is _out of my league._

"Yep. So you best steer clear of him, and ignore your most unfortunate feelings."

"I have _no _feelings for him," Lily snapped stubbornly.

"Oh come on-" Rebecca started only to be interrupted by the morning post soaring in. her own owl, Swizzler dropped off a letter into her breakfast before eating some food off her plate and taking off again. Rebecca opened her letter, and quickly read through it, her eyes widening suddenly.

"What is it?" Lily questioned curiously.

"Nothing," Rebecca assured her, returning to her breakfast.

"Oh come on!" Lily exclaimed, Rebecca only stuck out her tongue with a superior see-how-it-feels-when-your-friend-keeps-secrets-from-you look on her face.

Lily sulkily returned to her breakfast, before she suddenly sensed a pair of eyes looking at her, looking up Lily noticed that Professor McGonagall was shooting daggers at her from where she was sitting at the staff table.

"Err Rebecca, does it look like McGonagall is glaring at me to you too?" Lily asked nervously.

Rebecca looked up before groaning, "aww man and this morning seemed so promising to, what did you do this time Lils?"

Lily thought about it before also groaning "more like what didn't I do," she said slapping her palm against her forehead. "I forgot all about my stupid detention last night!"

Rebecca sighed "oh Lily…" before she suddenly laughed, "Hey, at least you weren't late."

Lily put her head down on the table miserably, "Late? I didn't even show up, McGonagall's going to kill me."

"Oh cheer up it's time for class, and we have Transfiguration first thing," Rebecca informed Lily chirpily.

"How is saying that supposed to cheer me up?" Lily asked as Rebecca dragged her out of the hall.

Transfiguration was uneventful and boring most of the students couldn't wait for the class to end, yet Lily was sitting nervously on the edge of her seat all lesson, to her, class seemed to be going much too slowly. She just knew that McGonagall was waiting for the end of class to speak to her.

"Ease up Lils, she probably forgot all about your detention, you're getting all wound up for nothing." Rebecca hissed under her breath.

Lily highly doubted that professor McGonagall had forgotten about her detention, considering the Professor's good memory and stern nature, not to mention the fact that she had been openly glaring at Lily all lesson.

Lily threw a sceptical look at Rebecca before turning her attention back to professor McGonagall who was in the mist of dismissing the class, "Miss Evans could you care to remain back for a moment please?" was the request she concluded her dismissal with. Lily grimaced at a sympathetic Rebecca, who looked at her unsurely.

Lily guessed what she was worrying about, "Go to class, who knows how long she'll talk to me for." Rebecca threw her a grateful look before scampering off for her next class.

Lily slowly approached Professor McGonagall's desk and looked at the Professor oddly calm, the professor looked back expectantly.

Lily hated that. She hated how teachers always waited for her to speak first and admit her wrong, even when they were the ones who had called her.

Lily continued to stare back at the professor until she cleared her throat expectantly. McGonagall frowned at this before speaking her mind, "Filch informed me that you missed your detention last night."

Acting on a sudden inspiration Lily decided to feign ignorance, "detention? What detention professor?"

Professor McGonagall's lips thinned and her eyes narrowed dangerously, "The detention I gave you Miss Evans," she answered severely.

"You mean the one I went to yesterday?" Lily asked in a puzzled tone, staring worriedly at the professor as though concerned she had memory loss.

"I gave you a week's worth of detention, not just a day Miss Evans," professor McGonagall snapped, however behind her irritation Lily noted slight uncertainty in the professor's tone. Containing her smirk, Lily continued to frown in confusion.

"Professor I'm pretty sure you only gave me one detention…" Lily informed the professor delicately.

Professor McGonagall glowered at Lily but appeared to be thinking back, after a moment the professor said in a still uncertain tone, "very well Miss Evans, you may go to your next class."

Lily nodded politely before heading out the door, she couldn't believe her luck! Rather than getting in trouble for skipping her detention she had received pardon from the rest of that week's detentions.

Lily was almost skipping with glee until she realised she was running late for her next class and that class just happened to be Defence Against The Dark Arts, Lily, who always seemed to be running, ran to her next class, when she got to the door she didn't bother knocking and just walked in.

* * *

The Marauder's strolled into the defence against the dark arts classroom at a casual pace, and all four boys easily slid into their respective seats at the back of the room. They were sitting a test today, one which was supposedly important. None of the Marauders were concerned however, they all had their future careers planned out, they would inherit their family businesses, they did not need to work for that, they would get what they wanted no matter what. Receiving good grades was just the backup plan for if they ever did lose their business's and as the chances of that were slim, none of the boys' took their grades too seriously.

James yawned in his seat, waiting for the class that had yet to begin, to end. He was not at all fazed by his and his friends' lack of preparation for today's test, he and Remus would probably know all the answers anyway, and Sirius and Peter would just cheat off them, and reword their answers. That was what they usually did, the teacher's never caught them and if they did then they never called them out on it.

The door opened and Professor Mocha strode in carrying a stack of papers in her arms, her presence was enough for the class to immediately settle down and be quiet. It was no secret that professor Mocha was the scariest of the Professors. One who hardly let the students' wealth intimidate her, her attitude bothered most of the students enough to want her gone, including the Marauders. The only reason they'd never complained about her was because of the curse placed on her job, she'd be gone next year anyway, there were multiple bets placed on how she'd go for that matter.

The professor raised her wand and quickly distributed her papers around the class face down before beginning her usual 'don't even think about cheating or talking' lecture. James waiting impatiently for her to finish speaking jumped slightly when the door opened.

It was like déjà vu.

There stood the red faced flamingo girl, staring apologetically at the Professor she had just cut off mid speech by her entrance.

"I'm sorry I'm late Professor I was speaking with Prof-" she started but didn't finish because Professor Mocha chose that precise moment to distort her features into what might have- under other circumstances- resembled a smile.

The flamingo stared, dodo eyed, she wasn't alone. Professor Mocha could smile? Who would've guessed.

"Professor?" Flamingo-girl asked uncertainly.

"You came right on time Miss Evans, class as I was saying a moment ago one of my student's has already sat the test, and will be assisting me on monitoring the class today, as I have papers to grade she will be monitoring and ascertaining that no one is cheating, isn't that right Miss Evans?"

* * *

Lily silently stared at Professor Mocha, mortified. She was certain the professor had some evil agenda Lily was currently failing to see. Because there was no way Professor Mocha would ever trust Lily to monitor a class for her.

The professor stared back at Lily expectantly, realizing she was meant to confirm the Professor's statement Lily gave a mute nod, her face burning due to all the eyes on her.

_Great, they probably all think I'm some teachers pet. This is so embarrassing, that's probably what Mocha was trying to achieve, the evil donkey._

Professor Mocha motioned for Lily to come to her desk before clearing her throat and telling the class to begin.

The professor leaned forward in her seat and spoke quietly so that only her and Lily could hear what was being said, "You are to walk around the room and report back to me on anyone who you see behaving in a dodgy manner," she started before pausing and narrowing her eyes at Lily who was supressing a smirk.

_Did she really just call cheating behaving in a dodgy manner?_

When Lily's expression didn't change the professor's glare turned even icier then before. "If you fail to report back to me on those behaving in such a manner, and such news reaches me, then I will consider you to be a cheater along with those involved and your own test which I am marking now will be marked as such. I will also see to it that you serve detention every night with myself or Filch for the rest of the year."

Lily swallowed nervously, that was extremely harsh, what if Lily didn't catch someone cheating and the professor did, and Lily was punished for that?

_So this was her evil agenda then, failing me, not embarrassing me._

Lily begrudgingly walked around the classroom, her eyes locking with an amused pair of brown ones. Rebecca's eyes seemed to say "Liking the new job?," Lily glowered at her, hoping her own eyes were sending the message, "want me to bust you out for cheating, clever clots?" or something at least a little along those lines.

Rebecca smirked and turned back to her test.

Lily's eyes drifted down to the test paper of a small brunette boy who was closest to her, curious about how well the rest of the class were handling the test Lily leaned over slightly to read over his shoulder, her blood boiled at what she saw.

The boy was clearly a quick worker as he was already on the last page, which usually contained the hardest questions, but there right before Lily's eyes:

21.) Which defensive spell can be used to ward off dementors?

22.) Can werewolves change at will and which potion can help with their transformation?

23.) Name two different breeds of pixies.

On and on the questions went, the more Lily read the more angry she became.

_These questions are so easy! How come _I_ got some ridiculous bogus test, when no one else did!? _Lily thought outraged. And she thought she had hated Professor Mocha before.

_Now I get it, THIS was her real evil plot, she wanted me to fail, but she wanted me to know that I was going to fail, she knew I would see other peoples' tests by being her stupid 'monitor' and seeing how easy they are means everyone will pass but me, so I'll be the only one looking bad. _

Lily ground her teeth together silently fuming, before a sudden movement at the back of the room caught her attention.

James Potter was leaning across in his seat handing his completed paper over to Sirius Black, who was reaching out to take it. Lily pulled a face; they weren't even trying to be subtle.

Then something clicked, she had been worrying about what would happen if she didn't rat out cheating students, when the real problem was what would happen if she _did _rat out students, most especially the Marauder's.

Making a quick decision Lily decided to pretend to be focused on a student on the other side of the classroom, but couldn't stop herself from quickly stealing a glance at Professor Mocha, to make sure she wasn't watching.

Lily's stomach dropped, the moment she had looked at the Professor their gazes locked, and something in those dark eyes told Lily that the professor knew exactly what Lily had witnessed.

If the gaze didn't say it then the raised eyebrows and the expectant expression on Mocha's face did; she knew.

Lily considered her options; being murdered by her professor or being murdered by the Marauders. Another look at Mocha made the decision for Lily; Professor Mocha just looked so scary, especially when she was glaring.

Before Lily had made a conscious decision her feet were already carrying her in the direction of the teacher's desk.

"James Potter and Sirius Black may have been cheating Professor," she said the words quietly only for Mocha to hear. What did it matter if she ratted the Marauder's out anyway? She didn't like them, she never had and she was saving her own skin from Mocha's evil clutches, so really her dibby dobbing was for a good cause, besides it's not like Mocha didn't already know.

The professor looked at Lily with a pleased expression, looking as if someone had just fed her a cookie, a jumbo-sized, extra sweet chocolate chip cookie. Lily did not trust that expression one bit; time had taught her that Mocha was always safer when she looked as if she had been fed frog's guts, poisonous yoghurt-flavoured frogs guts, which was most of the time.

To Lily's horror the Professor then cleared her throat, readying herself to address the class. _What's she doing!? She isn't going to _say _anything is she!? I Thought she would just speak to Potter and Black after class, say that _she _had seen them cheating. _

But then this was Mocha Lily was talking -or rather thinking- about.

Preparing herself for the worst Lily silently started praying under her breath.

"Mr Potter, Mr Black please join me at the front of the class and bring your tests with you, the rest of the class please continue with your tests, there is still half an hour till the end of class."

None of the class listened to Mocha's orders to continue their tests, Lily assumed bitterly, that she knew they wouldn't, they were too busy looking between the Professor and the two Marauders'.

"Now boys," she began, her voice not quiet at all, Lily had no doubt the entire class could hear them, still that didn't stop them leaning forward in their seats as if they _couldn't _hear.

"My monitor over hear Miss Evans," Lily's face burned as she felt all eyes turn to her in perfect sync, "Informed me that she caught Mr Black cheating off a willing Mr Potter's work and I feel inclined to believe that she spoke the truth."

A hushed silence fell over the class while Professor Mocha was talking, somehow quieter now then it was before, when no one was supposed to be speaking. Lily tried to rearrange her features into a puzzled expression, trying to make it seem as if what Professor Mocha had said were new to her too.

Realizing she wasn't fooling anyone Lily quickly looked down and began fiddling with the hem of her jumper.

Never before had she hated someone like how she hated her professor in that moment.

_I take back what I said before; this was her real evil plan, to get me into trouble with the Marauder's. Nothing at this school is worse than that._

Lily hesitantly looked up, only to meet the burning stare of none other than James Potter. After 7 years of attending the same school as him she had never once seen him clearly like she did now, before then she'd only ever looked from a distance. Up close she could really appreciate his appearance, his thick black messy hair, his strong cheek bones, his gold-flecked hazel eyes, Lily suddenly recoiled from her thoughts.

What was she _thinking_? Those hazel eyes were currently staring at her in a way that made her want to run for her life.

And here Lily was admiring his beauty?

James Potter was the devil, the devil who wore a suit, she reminded herself firmly.

_And right now he does not look particularly happy with me. That can only mean trouble right?_

**A/N **

**Yes! I'm finished at last! I've actually had majority of this chapter done for about a month now, it was wrapping it up that took me ages, I didn't even have writers block, I was just being lazy… a review I got a couple of days ago reminded me that it's been ages since I've updated and I made myself finish the chap. Anyway it was pretty long so I hope that makes up for the wait:D well that's if anyone bothered waiting..**

**Anyway, thank you to all my followers/favouriters, you guys are awesome! And a massive thanks to my reviewers: Tess, ButterflyJam, Lighty1172, MaryLouise1996, Guest(I guess you know who you are:D) and bsms123, you guys are all superstars! Superstars, who will all hopefully win the lottery, inherit superpowers and gain an immeasurable amount of fame. **

**-Mini **

**p.s In this chapter I said that Rebecca has brown eyes, and I think at another point I may have said another colour like green or hazel, but I can't for the life of me be bothered reading through my story to find out if I did. So from now on her eyes are brown, okay? A nice light brown. But don't worry I don't plan on changing the colour of Lily's eyes or anything… you know I might just right down the description I gave James though, to play it safe… my memory sucks after all:D **


	4. Chapter 4

Long Lost

**DISCLAIMER: I most unfortunately do not own Harry Potter, its plot or any of its character's. All belongs to the wonderful J K Rowlings!**

"_When you finally go back to your old home, you find it wasn't the old home you missed but your childhood."_

_-Sam Ewing_

**Chapter 4**

"You're an idiot."

"I know."

"No really Lily, I don't think you get it. _You're an_ _idiot."_

"I know!"

"Seriously, what in Merlin's name could possibly make you rat out the Marauder's?"

"Professor Mocha."

"You're an idiot."

"Say that one more time!"

"Idiot."

Lily threw a bag of chips at her friend, before ducking under her covers. The two had been up all night in Lily's bed with the curtains drawn, trying to devise a plan on how to handle their current predicament.

"What am I going to do?" Lily sulked, for the thousandth time that night.

"Run away?" Rebecca suggested.

"Not a bad idea. Add that to the list."

The two had been composing a list of ideas, by morning it was their plan to go with the best one.

Lily got out from under her covers and looked worriedly at the pink sky, "What have we got so far?"

"Let's see, number one; get Potter and his cronies expelled, two, find out Potter's kryptonite and use it against him, three, befriend the Marauders, four, beg for forgiveness, five, change your appearance, six, run away, seven, no, that's it."

Lily groaned, not one of those ideas were good. They either couldn't solve her problem, or they could, but they were unrealistic.

"What am I going to do?" Lily asked dejectedly.

"I don't know Lils, but it's almost sunrise, we don't need to be up for at least another two hours, but whatever we choose is going to need some planning and preparation, so I say we choose our course of action now."

"Alright, alright, I think we should go with number 2 then."

"Really? I think number 5 is the best idea."

"Isn't changing our appearances a little over the top anyway? I mean surely it's not that bad…"

"Lily, I don't mean to alarm you, but you need to know what you've gotten yourself into. When I was coming back from sneaking food out of the kitchen, I saw a redheaded girl in the next corridor, some other students were there too, when they saw the girl, they turned her upside down. I heard her say "I'm not her!" and then they looked at her face more closely before letting her go. I think they thought she was you."

"That hardly surprises me, but even still, changing our appearances will only be a short term solution, people will figure out who we are in class when the professor does the role."

"When do the professor's ever really check the role? They just assume that seventh years will consider class to be too important to miss, so we'll come, and if we don't show then it's our loss."

"But if a professor sees us and knows we aren't in the right class…"

"We'll sit at the back then."

"someone's bound to recognize us eventually."

"Then we'll just change our appearances again."

"We can't keep changing our appearances Becky, it's a lot of work, and really, can you imagine altering your image every day for the rest of the year?"

''No. But we won't have to; you wanted to find Potter's weakness right? Then we will; undercover in our new disguises. We will then use it against him and we'll never have to change our appearances again. What do you think?"

"I think this whole plan is seriously far-fetched. But it's the best we have, so I guess I'm on board with it."

"Brilliant, time to get to work then," Rebecca jumped off Lily's bed and dashed into the bathroom.

Lily sighed and closed her eyes. What had she gotten herself into?

Figuring she better start changing her appearance Lily took her wand off her bed side table and twirled it in her palm, thinking.

_What should my new appearance be?_

She didn't want to change herself too much, maybe she'd only change her eyes and hair.

_What colour hair should I have? Red is out of the option. Brown? Well that's not too common in Hogwarts either; it stands out more than blonde here, which is unusual._

Most of the Hogwarts female population were blonde, most not naturally. Lily saw no problem with dying your hair blonde if you liked the colour, except most Hogwarts girls only did it because they wanted to look like Barby. Taking this into consideration Lily decided it would be best to become a blonde too, she would definitely blend in more that way.

Lily waved her wand once and said the necessary incantation to alter her hair. She then raised her hand to her hair; it felt the same as always. She would have to check in a mirror though to make sure it didn't look the same.

Lily then decided to change her eyes to a common blue colour, she didn't want to lose her bright emerald green eyes, however she knew they were a notable stand-out.

Deciding it was time to check out her new appearance and also see how Rebecca was going; Lily got up and headed over to the bathroom.

She silently entered the room and stood in the doorway. Rebecca was there standing in front of the mirror admiring herself. Like Lily, she had also decided to go with blonde hair, although she kept her brown eyes the same.

Sensing another presence in the room Rebecca said with her back to Lily, "It's not much; I couldn't bring myself to do more, besides people are mainly looking out for hair, so no one should look twice at us if we change that. How'd you go?" she asked finally turning round.

When Rebecca saw Lily her expression immediately turned hostile.

"What are you doing here? Eaves dropping on my conversation were you?"

Lily stared at Rebecca shocked before sputtering, "You're conversation with who?"

"Oh aren't you clever, trying to make it sound like I was talking to myself. Just get out and wait your turn if you want to use the bathroom."

"But-"

"I don't care if you're bladder's about to explode, or you need to do your makeup or whatever, just get out. Your face is giving me a headache."

"Rebecca! What's wrong with you!?"

"What's wrong- what's wrong with _me?" _Rebecca asked indignantly, "You're the one who-" she suddenly halted in her speech and stared hardly at Lily.

"wait, is that _you _Lily?" she asked astounded.

"Who else?" Lily asked confused.

Rebecca's faced cleared up immediately, "You look hideous," she informed her friend bluntly.

"Thanks Bec," Lily muttered sarcastically, before walking in front of the mirror to see for herself. Lily was pleasantly surprised by what she saw, contrary to what Rebecca had said, Lily didn't think she looked half bad. Although nothing could compare to her usual red hair, she really seemed to suit blonde, unlike a lot of people, it actually looked like it could be natural on her. And although she wouldn't say it aloud, that was more then she could say for Rebecca, who really looked quite odd as a blonde.

Lily then caught Rebecca staring at her expectantly. "What?" she asked, not entirely sure what Rebecca was waiting for.

"Lily, why aren't you freaking out? Aren't you bothered at all?" Rebecca interrogated, looking at Lily as if she had suddenly grown seven heads.

Lily frowned, feeling more than a little insulted, honestly, she didn't look _that bad _and even if she did, wasn't it Rebecca's job as her best friend to tell her she looked great?

"You don't see it do you?" Rebecca mused.

"See what!?" Lily asked frustrated. What was she supposed to see? Had she accidently enchanted a huge wart onto her ear or something?

"Lily…" Rebecca started delicately, "you… well…, you look like Petunia. So much it's scary," she finished in a sympathetic tone.

Lily stared at Rebecca blankly, and then checked her ears to make sure Rebecca hadn't just backed out of telling her she really did have a wart or something. Because really, _she_ looked like Petunia? Yeah right. Lily looked back at herself in the mirror.

_I look nothing like her. Rebecca's finally lost it._

"Haha, very funny Rebecca, well now that you've had your laugh, can we get back to more pressing issues?"

"Does it look like I'm laughing to you? And what could be more pressing then this? Lily, you resemble a horse"

"Rebecca you're only saying this because like Petunia I'm blonde now, but you are too, so I guess we _both _resemble horse-face."

"No. That's not it, it's not even the hair. I mean it is, well that's what drew my attention to the resemblance anyway. I can't believe I never noticed how similar your faces are."

"Rebecca, all of me and petunia's features are different! Her nose is longer, her neck is longer, her eyes are smaller-"

"I know that your features are different, it's probably why I never noticed the resemblance in the first place, but they're all so similar too. Now that I'm looking for it, I can really see so much Petunia in you."

Lily glared furiously at her friend; this was obviously Rebecca's way with dealing with her nerves, by insulting Lily. Deciding that it didn't matter that Rebecca was insulting her, and that she was only grateful that Rebecca was still with her in her moment of need, Lily decided to pretend to agree with her, maybe then Rebecca could let the matter drop.

"Yeah I guess we do share a resemblance, however mediocre it is, so phase one of our plan is done, now how are we going to go about the rest of it?"

"Well we'll start by following the Marauder's around, sneakily of course. And hopefully the rest of the plan will unfold itself from there."

"Right, sounds promising, let's go to breakfast then, before the rest of our dorm wakes up."

The two quickly headed out of their dorm and out of the common room, before slowing down their pace. If they had been spotted with their new appearances in their dormitory they would immediately be caught, as there were only few people in their dorm to begin with.

Once they reached the great hall they headed over to the Ravenclaw table, deciding a change of scenery was necessary as people would probably be searching the Gryffindor table for them.

The two sat right at the end of the table, nearest to the professors table and began their breakfast, "The food isn't as good today," Rebecca grumbled.

"That's probably because of your nerves, you can't properly focus on the flavour," Lily told her wisely.

"No," Rebecca corrected, "It just doesn't taste good."

Lily rolled her eyes at her friend, "What do we have first period?" They both had very similar time-tables and more often than not, shared the same classes.

Rebecca pulled out her time-table and groaned, "This is really the worst morning."

"Potions?" Lily questioned eagerly, Lily loved potions, but she knew Rebecca didn't.

Rebecca nodded before continuing to eat her breakfast.

"O-oh, incoming!" Lily exclaimed before diving under the table.

"What?" Rebecca asked confused before looking up towards the great hall's double doors, where of course Ethan Johnson, ever the early bird, was absently heading towards the Ravenclaw table.

"Lily what do I do if he comes this way?" Rebecca hissed.

"I don't know," Lily said from under the table, "hopefully he won't recognize you if he does sit here. Let's just hope that he doesn't sit at our end of the table to start with."

Just at that moment Ethan was about to sit down in his usual spot in the middle of the table before he looked up and caught Rebecca's eye, he then continued in her direction.

"Lily! I think he's coming." Rebecca panicked.

"Act natural, don't let him get a good look at you!" Lily hissed.

Ethan's steps towards them seemed to be playing in slow motion, until finally he sat down across from Rebecca, leaving Lily awkwardly sitting between both of their legs.

"Umm, hi," Rebecca greeted nervously.

"Morning," Ethan replied cheerfully, "I haven't seen you around here before, few people are ever up at this time."

Rebecca laughed, "trust me, I know."

Lily hit her, and Ethan raised an eye-brow.

Realizing her mistake, Rebecca quickly corrected herself, "I mean people have told me and stuff."

"Right, OK then, so are you new to this school?" Ethan continued conversationally, while Lily silently groaned under the table. By the sounds of things, she was going to be there a while.

"N-yeah," Rebecca answered before hurriedly elaborating, "I mean, kind of, I'm new this year, so I've been here a few weeks."

"Oh, then you must not know the castle too well, I know how big the place is. If you want I can show you the short cuts and stuff, the professors are strict around here, they're only really lenient with first years being late to classes, so it'll probably be hard on you if you don't know the shortcuts, what year are you in anyway?"

"Oh um, sixth year," Rebecca lied, "but I'll be fine, you don't need to waste your time showing me around, my new friends' have already been doing that."

"You've made friends, well that's great, a lot of people find It difficult to find friends at schools where they're the only new kid, so who are your friends? Fill me in and I can tell you if they're any good."

Rebecca internally cursed, Ethan was nice enough, but did he never get sick of asking questions? She wondered if he realized how much he was interrogating her. She doubted he did, he probably thought he was only making harmless conversation.

Rebecca had dug her way into a hole; she didn't know any Ravenclaw sixth years. Rebecca opened her mouth to tell some more lies, when she was suddenly hit with what she saw as a great opportunity.

"Well, I did meet this one great girl," she began slyly, "really helpful, showed me around when I got lost, helps me with my homework when I ask, so sweet and kind, really just amazing."

"Well she sounds nice, do I know her?"

"You might, she's in your year, her name's Lily something I think. Lily Feather, no that's not right, Lily Empty, no, Lily E-"

"Evans?"

"That's the one!" Rebecca replied keenly, "so you know her then? What do you think of her?"

All the while Lily was still sitting under the table, furiously pounding on Rebecca's foot, trying to get her to shut up. However she had gone very still at the last question.

"Well, it's like you said; she's nice," he said shrugging, "good friend choice," he added before continuing on his breakfast.

Lily could tell the great hall was beginning to fill up by the amount of legs she could see slowly filling up the table. Lily realized that now was a good time to leave, if the hall filled up too much it would be too hard to crawl out from the table without bumping into people, now was also a good time to leave as the hall was no longer empty so if Ethan noticed her crawling out from under the table there'd be enough people to block his view, before he could really get a good look at her, unlike before.

Jumping at the chance to leave, Lily carefully began crawling towards the end of the table, weaving her way through people's legs and climbing over feet.

Finally, after only bumping into two or three people, Lily reached the end of the table, hopped up and dashed out of the hall, ignoring the shocked looks from the people who had been sitting at the end of the table she had just jumped out from under.

Having nothing better to do, Lily headed over to the dungeons and stood at the door of her potions classroom, waiting for Rebecca.

After about 15 minutes, Rebecca and a few other students showed up, together they both entered the class and Lily immediately headed over to their usual spot at the front of the room.

"Lily, what are you doing? We're hiding at the back from now on, remember?" Rebecca told her, placing her book bag down on one of the table's at the back of the room.

Lily quickly joined her, "so, did Ethan say anything about me?" she began casually.

"Yeah, he said you were nice," Rebecca replied disinterestedly.

"I know that, I mean didn't he say anything else?" Lily asked disheartened.

"Yes, heaps about quidditch. Why does it matter anyway? I thought you didn't like him," Rebecca questioned suspiciously.

"I don't," Lily said firmly.

"Right."

Lily glared at Rebecca who smirked back. The two continued their silent staring contest until they both jumped at the sound of chairs scraping the ground across from them.

"I won!" they both declared at the same time.

"Are you kidding you just looked away!"

"I did not! You blinked! I only looked away because you blinked!"

"I only blinked because you jumped!"

"AHA you just admitted I won!"

"No I didn't, I wasn't finished, when you jumped you looked away, THEN I blinked!"

"If I was looking away how did I know you blinked?"

One of the people who had sat across from the girls' cleared their throat, Lily and Rebecca both looked up and were stunned to see Remus Lupin and Sirius Black sitting across from them.

Of course. Remus and Sirius shared this potions lesson with them and always sat at the back of the room.

Cursing their stupidity, both girls ducked their heads and stared determinedly at the table top, hoping they wouldn't be recognized.

"Yes?" Rebecca asked meekly as a response to Sirius clearing his throat, while Lily pulled out a piece of parchment and placed it in front of them, so it would at least seem as if they had a reason to be looking down.

"Slughorn just said we're supposed to be working in groups of four for this potion, looks like we're working together," Sirius said, looking at them expectantly.

Lily and Rebecca exchanged horrified glances, when had they become so unlucky?

They both mumbled and kept staring at the parchment in front of them.

"yeah, that's good."

"Good, great"

Sirius threw Remus a doubtful look, while mouthing the word 'crazy' to him, Remus nodded before addressing the girls.

"Do you want to collect the ingredients or set up the equipment?"

"We'll get the ingredients!" Lily quickly answered, jumping up and pulling Rebecca along with her to the storage cupboard.

"What do we do?" Lily asked Rebecca desperately, "what if they recognize us!"

"Well they haven't so far, so if we continue to keep our heads down they shouldn't. Besides, this is a good thing!"

Lily looked at her friend as if she had grown several extra heads.

"Good?"

"We're supposed to be finding out Potter's weakness right? Well Lupin and Black are bound to talk to each other, this is the eavesdropping opportunity we need. Now come on let's get back, who knows how much we've already missed."

Lily and Rebecca hurriedly scuttled back to their seats beside the two Marauders , once they were seated they once again looked down at the piece of parchment in front of them, deciding they looked more than a little suspicious, Lily quickly drew up some lines and began a game of naughts and crosses.

Lily's ears perked up when she heard Sirius and Remus quietly conversing, exchanging a meaningful look with Rebecca she stilled and strained her ears to catch what was being said.

"I think they're crazy," that was Sirius.

"Be nice Padfoot, they're just shy," Remus replied.

"They're taking turns drawing circles and crosses on a piece of parchment."

Lily felt her face heat up, they thought her and Rebecca were bonkers. Remus seemed to notice Lily and Rebecca watching him and Sirius and hastily cleared his throat and headed towards them.

"Alright then, let's get started. First we need to add a rat's tail, to a pot of mud," Remus began, before looking around purposefully. Frowning, he turned back to Lily and Rebecca, "Where are the ingredients?"

Sirius snorted.

Lily and Rebecca jumped up sheepishly.

"Never mind," Remus told them before they could go back to the storage cupboard, "I'll just get the ingredients instead."

Sirius laughed, "Forget it Mooney," he told his friend, before turning to the group next to them and telling one of the guys to collect the ingredients for him.

Lily and Rebecca exchanged a look. The Marauders were always getting people to do their dirty work for them.

The boy, a clumsy Hufflepuff, who Lily recognized as a friendly face from her charms class, quickly ran to the storage cupboard and came scurrying back immediately, juggling the ingredients in his arms. He placed the ingredients in front of them and left without receiving any thanks.

Lily felt bad and for the first time that day was truly thankful that she wasn't as recognizable as usual.

Together the group silently started to make the potion, speaking only when necessary. After a few minutes however, Sirius and Remus began to talk.

"Any news on Evans?" Remus asked Sirius, in an interested tone.

"None, haven't seen her yet today," Sirius answered amused, "and as far as I know, no one else has either. She probably ran while she could."

Remus seemed to relax a little, "smart choice, James is on the war path."

"Can't say I blame him, I'm not too happy with the girl myself." Sirius said, looking irritated.

"I'll bet. Does Prongs have anything planned?" Remus asked curiously.

"Not from what I know," Sirius answered honestly, not noticing the tense girls beside him suddenly relaxing, "he's been distracted recently."

"Petunia?"

"Yeah, I think at the moment he's more concerned with getting rid of her then he is with getting rid of Evans. I'm not sure if he's still even coming to the Eves annual Ball tonight."

"I'm sure he'll be there, we go every year, besides his parents wouldn't have it any other way," Remus replied with certainty.

"Yeah, I suppose you're right, I was considering skipping it myself this year, but then I heard that model, something Smith, from Witch Weekly would be there."

Remus laughed and told Sirius he didn't stand a chance.

Lily and Rebecca abruptly stopped listening in on their conversation when they realized the two had nothing more important to discuss.

They waited impatiently until the end of class to discuss what they had heard.

"I forgot about the stupid party Petunia throws every year." Lily muttered to Rebecca quietly as they walked out of the classroom and headed to their next class.

"Me too, it's probably because it has no purpose, or maybe because we're never invited."

"Don't say that, Bec, you were invited in first year, if I remember correctly."

"Gah, don't remind me," Rebecca said grimacing.

"I can't believe you actually went."

"I already told you, my parents made me go."

"I'll bet they were disappointed when you missed the next 6 invites."

"They were, but I think they've gotten over it. _I think_." Rebecca tacked on uncertainly.

Lily laughed, "Your parents have always wanted you to be at the top of the social pyramid."

"And I will be Lils, all in good time," Rebecca said with a far-away look.

"Yeah, I'm sure," Lily snorted, "just don't forget who's first on your invite list, when you are at the top."

"How can I? When you'll probably invite yourself, before I've sent out any invites. But we should get back to more important matters."

Lily groaned, "Now what?"

"We obviously have to make a solid plan on how we're going to find Potter's weakness," Rebecca told her rolling her eyes, "We're lucky. For the first time ever Petunia has done something worthwhile with her existence and bought us some time."

"What's time when we don't even know how to use it?" Lily asked grumpily, "Let's face it Rebecca, the world is over, my world is over, my life is over, I'm dying," she moped.

"Please Lily, shut up. I have a plan."

Lily looked up hopefully.

"We're going to the ball tonight."

"And which ball would that be?" Lily asked warily.

"You _know _which one I'm talking about Lily, the Eves's. You heard Black and Lupin, the Marauder's will be there. _At a party!_ And let's face it, a lot more secrets come out at parties then they do at school, and you know it."

"Oh come on," Lily scoffed, "we're not going to find any of Potter's secrets at Petunia's place."

"Oh I don't know Lils, their families _are_ pretty close. And even if we can't find anything on Potter, I'm sure you would love to take a peek at Petunia's diary. I know she has one, or at least she did when she was eleven."

Lily hesitated, not at all ashamed to admit she was tempted by the prospect of uncovering some of Petunia's secrets, if not Potter's.

"You're overlooking a major detail Bec; we aren't invited."

"Please, it's not like it would be the first time we've gone somewhere uninvited."

Lily laughed, "If you're referring to are daring endeavours into the library I should probably tell you, you don't need an invite to go there," she remarked dryly.

"Oh come on Lily! It's a ball! It will be fun, and who checks invites anyway? They're the Eves', not the monarchy."

Lily chewed the inside of her cheek, considering. She didn't know why she was so set against the idea, she attributed it to her self-preserving nature, for some reason she felt nervous at the idea of entering Petunia's home. For all she knew, showing up to someone's house uninvited could be arrest worthy.

But she _did _want to read Petunia's diary.

"Fine," she conceded. "You win; we'll go to this stupid ball."

"Yes! I knew you would agree! Come on we have so much to do! What are we going to wear?" Rebecca stressed as she dragged a reluctant Lily up to Gryffindor tower with her.

Lily and Rebecca, ever the rebellious students, skipped the rest of their classes and spent the rest of the day preparing for the adventurous night ahead.

"It's a good thing Petunia and the others left early for the ball," Lily mused looking around the empty dormitory.

"Too true," Rebecca agreed, applying a coat of eyeliner to her eyes, "Oh My Gosh!" she suddenly gasped.

"What?" Lily asked alarmed, looking around the room to ensure there weren't any intruders.

"I can't believe I forgot," Rebecca said, while slapping her palm to her forehead.

"What is it Bec?" Lily asked concerned.

Rebecca looked up at Lily sheepishly, "I have other plans tonight. I was meant to meet with someone."

Lily gaped at Rebecca "You waited until 30 minutes before the ball starts to tell me this!?"

"I told you, I forgot," Rebecca defended, "look the plan's still in place, nothing's changed, you're just going to have to go without me."

"What!? Are you kidding me? No way! You were the one who wanted to go! Why can't you just cancel on this person?" Lily demanded.

"Because I can't," Rebecca answered her firmly.

"Who is it anyway?" Lily asked suspiciously.

Rebecca hesitated for a moment before answering honestly, "Ethan."

"What?" Lily deadpanned, shocked.

"He convinced me to meet with him," Rebecca hurried on, "Just to show me around the castle and stuff, he still thinks I'm new."

"Ok," Lily began slowly, "Well that's lovely Rebecca. Except you're not new, you know your way around the castle and he doesn't even know who you are, so I doubt you'll be in too much trouble for standing him up. So why don't we just stick with the original plan? Where we're _both_ breaking into Petunia's home."

"Lily," Rebecca reprimanded, "I won't just stand him up, it's rude."

Lily opened her mouth to protest but Rebecca hurried on, "besides, if I don't show up he might go looking for me tomorrow to find out why, and if he finds me with you, well, he'll probably recognize you and blow our cover. You don't want that do you?"

Lily ground her teeth together and tried to convince herself that she wasn't irritated with Rebecca.

"Right. Of course not," She muttered an unconvincing reply.

"Great, get your dress on, you need to leave soon," Rebecca reminded Lily, snapping her out of her temporary irritation.

"Are you sure you know where I'm supposed to apparate to?" Lily asked nervously, she was not keen on the idea of ending up in a random place on her own, nor was she too confident about her apparition skills.

"Everything will be fine Lils," Rebecca assured her, "I've been there before, remember? I know exactly where you need to go."

Lily reluctantly took her friend's advice and began to get dressed, trying desperately to calm her nerves. Everything was going to be fine.

Yet Lily couldn't ignore the forbearing anticipation that had been settling over her since Rebecca suggested they sneak into the ball.

She couldn't shake the feeling that something big would happen if she went to Petunia's home.

"Are you ready?" Rebecca asked impatiently, checking her wrist watch. "We're going to be late at this rate, don't forget we're apparating which means we need to get into Hogsmeade."

"Yeah, I'm ready," Lily replied absently, before Rebecca began lugging her over to the door.

Before they left Lily looked back at the empty dormitory remorsefully, the one night of promised peace where she would not have to share a room with the girls she despised was being taken from her. Instead she was going straight to them.

Sneaking out of Hogwarts was not too difficult, although Lily and Rebecca didn't know any secret passages they had done this before, not to mention a lot of people had permission to leave the school tonight to attend the Eves Ball, so no one really questioned the girls as they left.

"Alright," Rebecca said, "We're here, you know the place Lily, I've showed you the picture, now come on."

Lily took a deep breath then pictured the large house, the ornate, rose garden, the fountain, and the street. Then with all her might she pictured herself in the scene and disappeared with a crack.

Lily landed on the ground gasping for breath; she hated the feeling of apparition. Hastily, she stood up and looked at her surroundings.

"Well shit," she cursed.

The dark empty street she was standing in was hardly what she had in mind.

Lily decided that she couldn't have been that far off, maybe the Eves had anti-apparition wards around their home. That seemed reasonable. In that case, Lily was probably as near as she could be to the home by arriving through apparition.

With that in mind, Lily surged forward in search of a busy, lively street.

As she had guessed, she didn't have to look too far; the very next street contained the large, grand house-mansion she had been looking for.

Lily headed towards the home, her heart aching with familiarity; this was definitely the picture that Rebecca had shown her.

Lily quickly hurried to the house and casually joined the group of people who were just entering, thankfully the family weren't welcoming people at the door, but instead had put a random man up to the job.

The man didn't recognize Lily, but she doubted that he recognized half the people there, thankfully he didn't ask for any invites but instead just smiled and greeted her with the same greeting he probably gave everyone.

"Welcome to Eves residence, please head straight down to the ballroom, and have a lovely evening."

Lily smiled at the man, but otherwise ignored his instructions.

She didn't know where the ballroom was anyway.

Lily looked around her in awe, the house looked even better on the inside then it did on the out. She walked down the hall and turned left into a spacious room. Looking around she figured this must be the living room.

It was the most grand living room Lily had every laid eyes on; the room was large, with deep green velvet sofas, white walls littered with photographs and a high ceiling, the coffee table at the center of the room was so clean it sparkled, the carpet looked so soft and fluffy Lily had to fight the urge to take her shoes off and walk on It bare-footed, there was even a huge fireplace that warmed up the whole room and left the room with an ethereal glow, combined with the large roman-numeral grandfather clock hanging on the wall, Lily was left with the impression of being in a very old home.

Lily idly walked over to one of the plush, deep, green sofa's and gracelessly plonked down, enjoying the feel of the soft velvet material.

She knew she had to get up and continue searching for the 'ball room' where she would no doubt find the Marauder's, but sitting on the green sofa gave her the same feeling she had every morning when she had to wake up. The sofa was just so comfy she decided she would wait another 5 minutes before she got up again.

_Just five minutes_, she told herself as her eyes began to flutter close of their own accord, right before they shut however a sudden movement caught her attention, the source of the movement had come from a large portrait on the wall that caught and held her gaze.

Lily sat up straight and leaned forward, getting a better look at the portrait.

It was a family of four.

Lily felt her breath catch in her throat as the memory of the story Rebecca had told her of Petunia's family came rushing back to her.

With a sense of forbidding Lily slowly crept towards the moving portrait and watched the family warily, they watched her too, which made her feel more than a little uncomfortable.

No, they weren't watching her, she reminded herself, they were merely replaying a moment in time where they were all looking at the camera man.

Lily raised her palm and gently placed it on the portrait, her eyes shifted to the laughing baby on the right, a sense of unease settled in the pit of her stomach. She didn't know why, but the whole portrait made her feel uneasy, maybe it was the unplaced sense of familiarity it seemed to awaken in her, whatever it was, it was making Lily uncomfortable, so she forced herself to look away and instead looked at the next photo.

It was a family of three.

Petunia and her parents on a holiday, Lily ran her finger over the engraved writing on the bottom of the photo. _Paris, 1967._

Petunia had been to Paris, this didn't surprise Lily, what did surprise her was the lonely, sad feeling she got while looking at the photo.

Frowning, Lily reasoned that she was sad because she had always wanted to go to Paris, but her parents had never had enough money to spend on such extravagant holidays.

"Excuse me Miss," A squeaky voice interrupted Lily's musings.

Lily spun around relieved to break eye contact with all the photographs around the room. Looking down she came face to face with a house elf.

"You are meant to be in the ballroom Miss," the elf informed her, "Do you need to be shown the way?"

Lily smiled happily at the elf; he was a life-saver. "Yes, thank you. I think I've done enough exploring for one day," she told him, grimacing at the photos around the room.

The elf smiled politely, but did not ask any questions.

Lily quickly followed after the elf as he led her out of the room, she briefly considered starting a conversation but then decided against it. She wasn't here to meet people. Besides the more people she spoke to, the greater the chance was her cover would be blown.

The elf led her through multiple doors and down many corridors and even down a flight of stairs, before finally pausing at two large glass double doors.

"The ballroom," he told her shortly, before giving her a low bow.

Lily thanked him before he disapparated.

Through the glass doors Lily could see hundreds of dancing figures. Taking a deep breath she pushed open the doors before she could change her mind.

Rebecca would not be too impressed if Lily abandoned the plan and ran last minute.

Lily slowly headed towards the drink table and poured herself a glass of pumpkin juice, she analysed the room, but much to her dismay couldn't see anyone she recognized.

This was probably a good thing, considering she wasn't even supposed to be there.

Deciding to give up her search on the Marauders, she wouldn't find anything here anyway, and instead search for Petunia's bedroom; Lily spun around and headed in the direction of the door.

"Petunia," An irritated voice came from behind her, Lily paused, cursing her new hair and nervously turned around.

She choked on her drink.

Standing before her was James Potter, and although Lily probably should have been ecstatic over finding him, she couldn't even bring herself to be a little happy.

She was really hoping the plan would fail and she wouldn't run into any of the Marauders.

All she wanted was Petunia's diary.

Was that really too much to ask?

Lily was nervous that If she let James look at her face too closely, he would know she wasn't Petunia and she considered spinning back around. But then she remembered, it was a ball, at night, and the lighting was pretty dim.

"You need to do something for me," James told her, before continuing without waiting for her to answer, "Convince your parents that you hate me."

"What?" Lily asked confused, "Why?"

James glared at her.

"I mean, yeah sure, that shouldn't be too hard," Lily amended.

James continued to death glare her for another moment, before turning to leave.

"Wait!" Lily blurted out. He was here now, and he thought she was his finance, so she may as well try to get something out of him.

James impatiently turned back around.

"Are you allergic to peanuts?" Lily asked hurriedly, when James continued to stare Lily elaborated, "Because this pumpkin juice tastes great, but I think I saw a peanut in it before, you should try it." Lily said shoving the drink into his hands.

Irritated James handed Lily her drink back, "No thanks," he said coolly.

"So you _are _allergic to peanuts!" Lily declared triumphantly, this was great; now she knew how to kill him.

"No," James snapped and Lily frowned, "I just don't want your drink."

"Oh Really? You must be allergic to pumpkin then," Lily continued suspiciously, when James sighed, Lily pressed on, "Sugar? Glass? You must be allergic to something, what is it?"

"You." He muttered, before turning to leave once again.

"Wait!" Lily cried out grabbing his arm, "Spiders? Are you scared of spiders?"

James threw Lily an incredulous look, "Don't tell there was a spider in that drink too," he said looking at the glass disgustedly, "And you tried to get me to drink that!"

"What? No, I just meant, I just wanted to know if you were scared of anything," Lily said sheepishly.

"Why?"

"So I can know how to destroy you," she answered bluntly.

James assessed Lily for a moment and Lily looked away embarrassed, she had just divulged her entire plan to the enemy. Rebecca was going to be _so _mad.

Lily was surprised when James started to laugh, she had _never _seen James smile, let alone laugh.

She stared at him amazed and continued to watch him warily for a moment.

"What?" she snapped, irked out.

"You surprise me Petunia," he said genuinely, "If I had known you were this strange maybe I wouldn't have argued so much to get rid of you, I guess you are a bit interesting." He finished thoughtfully.

Lily didn't know whether to be flattered or insulted. He had called her strange after all.

"Thank you?" Lily asked uncertainly.

"Don't." James said seriously, "I'm still not going to marry you. Ever."

Lily smirked, she couldn't help it. She had first class seats to Petunia's rejection.

"I can't say I blame you," Lily told him cheerfully, "So then, you said you were allergic to me, is it the material of my dress? Silk?"

James laughed and shook his head, utterly surprised. All the while a new song started playing and James titled his head considering, turning back to Lily he held out his hand and surprised himself by asking her to dance.

Lily stared blankly at his hand for a moment. Did James Potter just ask her to dance? The rational part of her brain was telling her to run while she could.

Against her better judgement Lily delicately placed her hand in his and argued with herself the whole way to the dance floor.

_It's what petunia would do. _She decided firmly, that's why she was doing it, she assured herself. She didn't want James to realize that she was not Petunia and discover that she was Lily.

That was definitely the only reason.

James paused when they reached the dance floor and Lily was thankful that he seemed to prefer the edge to the center.

The last thing she needed was for Petunia to see her with James.

James lightly placed one of his hands on Lily's waist and the other in her hand, Lily, a bit too slow to respond placed her other arm around James's neck.

The song began slow, to which Lily was thankful, as she had no idea how to dance and felt certain she wouldn't be able to keep up with a quicker paced song. As it was, she had already stepped on James's feet more than a few times.

James was a brilliant dancer, Lily noted sourly, it would've been nice if her were as terrible as her. But of course, he was James Potter; he excelled at everything, she reminded herself bitterly.

Lily continued to dance with James until the end of the song, when it was over James offered to dance again, but she declined, insisting that she was thirsty.

James followed Lily to the drink table and poured himself a drink, "You can't dance," he told her bluntly.

Lily was surprised, not at his bluntness-that was expected- but at his tone, he didn't say it like an insult, just a surprising observation.

"Yeah," Lily answered, even though it hadn't been a question. She fiddled with her glass, she was doing a terrible job at playing Petunia, she was sure Petunia, like James, could dance flawlessly.

"Why?" James asked her curiously, "Didn't your parents put you in classes?"

"Um," Lily hesitated, not liking where the conversation was going, she didn't want to talk about Petunia, James probably knew more about her then she did and would realize if she told some lies. "They did," she continued anyway, "I just could never learn the steps properly."

James continued to watch her thoughtfully for a moment and Lily decided it was her cue to leave, before she did any more damage.

Lily opened her mouth and started making an excuse to go, but never finished, as at that moment, Petunia's mother, Mrs Eves, stood up on a podium and tapped a spoon against her glass to call for quiet.

Lily found she couldn't take her eyes off the woman.

She was beautiful.

Dawn Eves let her eyes briefly travel around the room, before she addressed the crowd. "Hello everybody, and welcome once again to my families ball. I am so happy that you could all be joining us here on this lovely night, my family and I all appreciate thi-" Mrs Eves prematurely halted in the middle of her speech. Upon the words 'my family' Mrs Eves eyes had habitually flitted up to the large ornate clock that hung glaringly obvious at the back of the room.

Mrs Eves continued to stare at it shocked, before letting a sudden breath out "Lillian," she said quietly.

Everyone in the room, including Lily, spun around to see what had got Mrs Eves so wound up.

And there right before them, hung the Eves family clock, large and glorious, it towered over all of them.

It wasn't the beautiful design, or the intricate little details that caused the room to collectively gasp however.

What was so shocking was that for the first time in almost 16 years all four of the handles were pointing at the same place.

_Home._

Silence. For a whole minute there was nothing but utter silence.

Then all hell broke loose, everyone was talking or shouting at once, everyone was moving around the room trying to get a good look at everyone else. All the while the Eves were trying desperately to get everyone to calm down.

All around her Lily could hear shouts of "It's a trick!" and "Impossible!" or "Out of my way!," the racket was starting to give her a headache.

Lily looked around her, due to all the movement and chaos, much to her relief; James was no longer at her side.

Lily heard a couple of bangs and looked up to see Mr Eves standing with his wand in the air, looking both irritated and hopeful. Everyone immediately stilled and quieted.

"Now," he began in a firm tone, "Everybody please remain calm, pandemonium is the last thing we need right now. If none of you protests my wife and I would quickly like to go around the room and cast a revealing charm. If anybody is not okay with that then please speak up now."

Everybody looked around the room, but no one spoke up or objected.

Lily swallowed nervously, she knew one person who didn't want to have a revealing charm used on them; her.

She was here uninvited which was possibly illegal. If they caught her, she would no doubt be shipped off to Azkaban.

Panicked, Lily subtlety made her way over to the door, where a tough looking man was standing on guard.

"Nobody leaves, until the search is over." He told Lily sternly.

"I know," Lily looked up helplessly "but I really need to use the bathroom."

The man squinted down at her, "Petunia?"

"Yeah," Lily muttered, "It's my house; I _can _use the bathroom can't I?"

"Well, of course but…" The man said unsure.

Lily threw him her best Petunia glare before threatening to have him fired.

The man moved instantly and Lily hurried past him feeling both triumphant and guilty.

She didn't stop to dwell on her emotions though.

Lily was here uninvited in a house full of people about to be searched,

For all she knew she could be arrested for break in and entering,

So she did the only reasonable thing she could think of;

She ran.

**A/N: **

**Hello everybody. I know, it's been like 6 months. What can I say? I suck. Alright, well actually the thing is I've just been very busy with school work lately and the truth is that's not going to change for quite some time. I'll write whenever I have time, but I'm not going to make any promises about a quick update, especially considering I'm fond of making long chapters. But what I can assure you is that there is no way I'm quitting on this story, not at the moment anyway, it's just getting started! So don't fret if a few months pass with no updates. **

**Alrighty, well I hope you all enjoyed the chapter! It wasn't exactly what I wanted, but its close enough. Please give me your feedback :)**

**And of course a special thanks to my reviewers! And anyone who has bared with me and has actually bothered to read this chapter after waiting so long.**

**asdfghjk :** Thank you for the review! And no of course I haven't given up! And finally somebody who appreciates my chapter lengths:)

**zooloo840:** I'm sorry to have kept you waiting, hopefully you're still following my story to see the update:)

**sasquatch1993:** Thank you! And sorry I didn't update soon

**bsms123:** I'll say! I wanted to take out the reference because I thought no one would get it, but that koala was a part of my childhood. And thanks for the review!

**SilverStare:** I'll try my hardest to update as often as I can! Thanks for the review:)

**Nedermg: **Thank you for the review! It's always good to hear that a chapters good!

**LittleRed22: **Thanks so much! I was hoping the idea was different, I wouldn't know for certain as I haven't read all the stories on FF, but it's still nice to hear it!

**Guest: **I loved Blinky Bill too! Thank you for the review! And thanks for saying the chap was great, it makes me feel great. Especially after my stupid English teacher told me I can't do creative writing.

**Anonymous0786: **Thank you for the review, yes Lily is meant to look like her mother with her father's eyes, the opposite of Harry I guess. And also thank you for all your persistence with the messages, no one's ever Pm'd me before, so I took so long to answer the first time because I thought I could answer through email, turns out it didn't work.


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